Panel To Boost Exports By States

As part of this plan, the government is considering setting up of an apex-level body for export promotion by states under commerce minister BB Ramaiah.

Nodal officers will be designated in states for export promotion. In some states such officers are already functioning.

The standing committee will receive all the demands of states as well as solve the problems they may face in their efforts to push exports.

This is part of the commerce ministry's overall exercise to involve states in the export sector.

Taking a cue from the commerce ministry, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) has decided to set up facilitation centres in states.

 

Last year, former commerce minister P Chidambaram held a series of meetings with state governments to discuss export promotion.

This step was taken by the states at the initiative of the commerce ministry's state cell meetings, said sources.

The cell has been set up to involve states in the national export effort.

The meetings started with Hyderabad for the eastern zone in October, followed by the north eastern states and Sikkim and then the norther zone including Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.

The last meeting was held on November 25 in Bombay with Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh have agreed in-principle to privatise intermediate and minor ports falling within their jurisdiction.

Recently, the Maharashtra and Gujarat governments have set up a maritime board each to look into this. While Maharashtra has about 50 minor ports, Gujarat has 29 minor, 11 intermediate ports and one major port - Kandla. Of these, several ports are not used at all.

The states have, however, been insisting that a portion of the foreign exchange earned through exports should be given to the states.

This was unacceptable since the ministry explained that the foreign exchange was retained by the RBI and not the Centre.