Commerce Secretary S R Rao today said that overall trade deficit is a cause of concern, however it won't continue for long. It is expected that from January things will be better. Even December there has been marginal reduction in deficit, said Rao. He said that the Government has announced some additional support, including fiscal measures for boosting exports.
According to Federation of Indian Export Organisations President Rafeeq Ahmed the trade deficit will be somewhere between $40-$45 billion. India's trade deficit in two months of October and November totalled nearly $40 billion.
Speaking to reporters after laying foundation stone for the final phase of the Aquatic Quarantine Facility in Chennai, Rao said that WTO had projected a growth of 4.5 per cent in world trade and had scaled it down thrice. The world trade is in great recession, the forecast for current year is not bright. In order to tackle the problem the Government is looking beyond US and Eurozone to find new markets for exports.
For instance, he said, Government is planning to double marine exports from $3.5 billion to $7 billion by 2015 and looking at new markets in Africa, Middle East and other countries. The Secretary also said this target cannot be reached by the Government alone and they have to partner with public. "That is why we are in the process of devising schemes to ramp up PPP model".
Expressing concern about the falling marine exports Rao said, "per kg realisation of marine exports dropped by 7-8 per cent in terms of value, while in terms of quantity it has increased during the current fiscal." He attributed the drop mainly to Dollar fluctuation.
According to Rao, “we need to get into more value added products and that is the need of the hour”.
He said that one of the reasons for this was the soverign debt crisis in Eurozone that has contracted trade. That US is also not out of the woods yet is also compounding the problem, said Rao.
