Commerce Ministry held Meeting with Export Promotion Councils to Boost Exports - (05 Feb 2019)

Commercial

In wake of enhancing exports, a meeting with export promotion councils and other key exporters was held to discuss various issues being faced by exporters and to examine ways by which India’s merchandise exports may reach USD 325 billion by March 2019. There has been growth of 13.31 per cent in overall exports (Merchandise and Services combined) in 2017-18 over the same period last year as per the data published. Overall exports stood at USD 498.61 billion in 2017-18 of which USD 303.53 billion was from merchandise exports. The Trade Policy is periodically reviewed in order to incorporate changes which might have become necessary both at domestic as well as international level.

Exports in December 2018 were US $ 27.93 Billion, as compared to US $ 27.83 Billion in December 2017, exhibiting a positive growth of 0.34 per cent. Export Promotion Council is the premier trade and investment promotion organisation in India. As an advisory body, it actively contributes to the policies of the Government of India and acts as an interface between the engineering industry and the government. India’s exports came under immense pressure again in the post 2013-2014 period due to accentuation of the global economic and financial crisis in the second phase, when countries like China also got adversely affected. However, since then concerted efforts through improved logistics, trade facilitation, increased digitization to reduce human interface and increase transparency, implementation of GST and capacity building through skilling the Government has been able to arrest the downturn affecting India. As a result, merchandise exports have been growing since 2016-2017 for almost three years and are likely to reach a new peak in 2018-2019.

In the period April to December 2018 in FY2018-2019, merchandise exports have grown by about 10% over the same period in the previous financial year. This has been made possible by a detailed export promotion strategy, which has been prepared by the Department of Commerce. The Department of Commerce is the nodal agency for formulation of policies with aim to increase the export of the country. In this process, the Department consults and collaborates with wide-ranging stakeholders, including Export Promotion Councils, exporters and financial institutions.

Tags : EXPORTS PROMOTION MEETING