Commerce Ministry to soon finalize a comprehensive export strategy to boost exports by $ 100 bn in next few years

New Delhi, July 5 (KNN) The Commerce Ministry will soon finalize a comprehensive export strategy that will increase exports by USD 100 billion in the next few years.

Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said this while addressing a workshop organized by Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation (FIEO).

The Minister said that he has held two rounds of discussions with Secretaries of key Ministries for preparing sectoral export strategies.

He said the states are also being consulted for preparing state specific export strategies.

The Minister said the FIEO was asked to prepare a strategy for increase in exports by USD 100 billion in the short term. EXIM Bank has also submitted its report about market research for exports. He urged the exporters to come up with suggestions to further increase exports by another USD 100 billion in short term.

The Commerce Minister said that the export performance has been encouraging, last year, as merchandise exports crossed USD 300 billion and registered a growth of 10 per cent, while in 2016-17 it was 5 per cent.

Total exports, including services, were at USD 498.47 billion and were up by 13.5 per cent in 2017-18. This year also there has been a growth in merchandise exports of more than 20 per cent each in May and June.

Mid-term review of the Foreign Trade Policy was undertaken which led to increasing export incentives by 33 per cent for MSME and labour intensive sectors.

Earlier, Exports Relief Package was announced by GST Council restoring schemes of duty free procurement of inputs for exports under Advanced Authorisation and Export Promotion Capital Goods.

The Minister assured the exporters that Government is fully seized of their concerns and is addressing them in the best interests of the country. He said their suggestions will be incorporated in the comprehensive export strategy.