Gujral To Chair Export Promotion Panel
The Union government has taken a decision to set up an empowered committee under the chairmanship of Prime Minister I K Gujral to facilitate export promotion.
The committee is expected to have representatives of export-related ministries including finance, surface transport, agriculture, industry, external affairs and commerce. Exporters have, for some time now, been pushing for the setting up such a committee. A request for the panel was made on several occasions, including the board of trade meetings, by former Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) president Shekhar Datta and by FIEO president Ramu S. Deora.
Deora has, in fact, suggested that a new post be created at the secretary level to exclusively cater to export promotion. FIEO has also, for a while now, been pushing for an apex-level body enjoying prime ministerial attention. CII had made a suggestion last October to set up a National Export Council. The commerce minister had then agreed to take up this proposal with the Prime Minister.
The proposal had envisaged a national level body to look at exporters problems with participation from all relevant ministries. It had been suggested by CII that the prime minister should be the chairman of the body with the commerce minister as the vice chairman.
This step has been taken with the government concerned over the dramatic slowdown in export growth to below 5 per cent in 1996-97 as against a growth of over 21 per cent last year. The export performance of the country in the last fiscal year compares with the crisis year of 1992-93 when export growth hit a low of 3.8 per cent.
The rate of growth of 4.01 per cent in 1996-97 is against an ambitious export growth rate of 20 per cent to achieve a target of US $38 billion. The target was missed by $5 billion with total exports in the year hovering at $33 billion.
The growth rate deteriorated dramatically in April to touch a negative 9 per cent.
This, sources said, hastened the decision to set up the committee since the finance ministry, the commerce ministry and the Prime Minister's office are extremely worried over the slow down in the growth rate.
The Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Russian regions have been among the major areas responsible for the exports slow down in 1996-97, registering negative rates of growth during the year.
The commodities which have shown a negative growth during 1996-97 include tea and coffee, cereals, leather and its manufactures, gems and jewellery and computer software.