Take on the challenge of Chinese competition: Maran

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 14. The Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr. Murasoli Maran, today warned that competition from China was a challenge that could not be met by anti-dumping measures alone. ``The ultimate answer is to improve our competitiveness,'' he stressed.

Presiding over a meeting of the Board of Trade, he noted that enhancing competitiveness holds the key to raising India's share of world trade to one per cent by the year 2004. On future prospects, he said there was optimism resulting from robust export growth of 20 per cent this year but there were also some apprehensions due to the slowdown of the U.S. economic and the new domestic trade regime. At the same time, he had full confidence in the resilience of Indian trade and industry to meet emerging challenges.

He told the meeting, which was attended by a wide range of trade and industry representatives as well as senior officials, that the mindset had to change at all levels to promote export consciousness in the country. He agreed with members that transaction costs as well as cost of export credit must be reduced and that there should be far greater involvement of the States in order to impart a new dynamism to the country's export effort.

Responding to members' suggestions, Mr. Maran said the offices of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) had been completely computerised. Along with computerisation of the Customs Department this year, this process would lead to much faster export-related transactions. Special Economic Zones (SEZs) which were announced in the Exim Policy for 2000-01 had emerged as new locations for hassle free manufacturing and trading activities. He said the SEZs at Nanguneri in Tamil Nadu and Positra in Gujarat were likely to be the first new SEZs to become operational.

On anti-dumping, the Commerce Secretary, Mr. Prabir Sengupta, informed members that only five or six cases are now pending and the designated authority had been responsive to petitions from the industry. He also pointed out it would not be correct to say that export growth this year was confined to only a few products as a large number of sectors had registered a growth of over 25 per cent in dollar terms including drugs and pharmaceuticals, engineering, marine products and leather and leather manufactures. In fact, the growth rate of India's exports had been higher than the growth rate in world trade in the last few years, he said.

During the meeting, the President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Mr. Arun Bharat Ram, stressed the need for dereservation and procedural simplification for increasing exports and suggested India should seek extension of the generalised system of preferences (GSP) for its products in the U.S. market for seven years instead of the present system of annual renewals.

Mr. R. S. Lodha of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) said the SEZs had great potential provided they had world class infrastructure. He suggested focussed export strategies based on tapping the potential of the textiles, chemicals and agro-sectors.

The chairman of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), northern region, Mr. O. P. Garg urged that 100 per cent exporting firms be treated at par with 100 per cent export oriented units and States should be involved in export promotion by earmarking of separate funds.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Business
Previous : ICICI Prudential Life starts Chennai operations
Next     : ICAI to impose ceiling on number of audits