The President of the Federation on Indian Exporters Organization (FIEO) Ganesh Kumar Gupta said that the export data of USD 26.07 billion with a growth of 0.64 percent was not at all encouraging.
According to him with rising trade tensions between US and China, the global trade scenario may further worsen, putting more pressure on Indian exports in months to come. The uncertainty attached to it will affect the flow of investment and add to currency volatility.
Gupta said that domestic issues including access to credit, cost of credit especially for merchant exporters, interest equalization support to all agricultural exports, benefits on sales to foreign tourists and exemption from IGST under Advance Authorization Scheme with retrospective effect should be seriously looked into. Besides these, budgetary support for marketing and exports related infrastructure are some of the other key issues, which needed immediate attention of the government.
He expressed his concern as almost all the labour-intensive sectors including leather and leather products, gems and jewellery, engineering goods, cotton yarns, fabrics, made-ups, man-made yarn, fabrics and made-ups, carpets, marine products, few plantations and various other sector of exports dominated by MSMEs are into negative territory.
These sectors are still facing the problem of liquidity besides various other challenges including global trade war, protectionism, fragile global conditions and constraints on the domestic front, he added.
The FIEO Chief said that there may be front loading of exports in the past as exporters were apprehensive of withdrawal of GSP I n US and development in Iran.
Only 14 out of 30 major product groups were in positive territory during April 2019 including petroleum, organic and inorganic chemicals, drugs and pharmaceuticals, RMG of all textiles, electronic goods, ceramic products and glassware, handicrafts, commodities besides some plantation, agriculture and dairy products have shown positive growth during the month.
FIEO Chief also expressed his concerns on the rising trade deficit primarily on account of swelling crude import bill with further northward movement of prices and ban on Iranian imports along with rising gold import.
