December Exports shows signs of improvement: FIEO
Author(s): City Air NewsLudhiana, January 18, 2016: Reacting to the Trade Data for the month of December 2015, Mr S C Ralhan, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said that export figures which reflected the continuous...
cityairnews
Jan 18, 2016 12:30
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Ludhiana, January 18, 2016: Reacting to the Trade Data for the month of December 2015, Mr S C Ralhan, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said that export figures which reflected the continuous decline for more than over a year now, seems to be now gaining the lost ground. Mr S C Ralhan said that December, 2015 trade data which has shown some signs of improvement has fared well to 22.29 billion dollars with a decline of 14.75 percent as against the sharp decline of 24.43 percent during the month of November, 2015.
Mr S C Ralhan said that in the recent past particularly during the last couple of weeks there has been significant decline in global commodities and crude oil prices. Adding to that the prices of these commodities are further expected to go down because of less demand in the global market and expectation of more supply of crude with lifting of sanctions from Iran. Mr Ralhan said as the commodities and crude oil prices have more than 40 percent bearing on India’s exports, this has further led to the continuous decline in exports. Global demand also does not seem to be picking up. With only countries like US showing little signs of improvement, this does not augur well for the country’s export sector in the long-run said FIEO President.
Though the news of Chinese slowdown and Yuan devaluation has somewhat dented the sentiments of the exports sector however China’s December exports data showing positive growth has come as a sign of encouragement said Mr Ralhan.
FIEO President said that talking about the top major commodities traded, positive performance has been shown by half of the items out of 30 product groups in December, 2015 as against 7 out of 30 product groups in November, 2015. Out of these 15 items which have shown positive growth, five of them have shown an impressive growth of about 25 and above growth. FIEO Chief added that with export sectors including Jute manufacturing including floor covering has shown an impressive growth of over 135 percent, Spices with 34 percent, Handicrafts (exclusive handmade carpet) with 27 percent, Tea with 25 percent and Fruits and vegetables with 24 percent growth were some of the high growth sectors. Besides Coffee, Tobacco, Cereals preparations and miscellaneous processed items, Ceramic products and glassware, Drugs and Pharmaceuticals, Organic and Inorganic Chemicals, Electronic Goods, RMG of all Textiles, Carpet and Plastics & Linoleum were some of the other sector which showed positive growth in exports during the month said Mr Ralhan. While on the import front sectors like Gold, Silver, Pulses and Vegetable oil were some the major sectors which have added to our import basket.
Mr Ralhan urges the government for the immediate reconsideration of inverted duty structure to give a boost to Make in India, exemption of Service tax from exports, creation of Export Development Fund (EDF) with a corpus of 0.5 percent to 1 percent of total export value,exemption of Terminal Excise Duty (TED) on purchase of Capital Goods, provision of fiscal incentive to MSMEs for the motivation of aggressive export marketing and restoring benefits under SHIS to Status Holder exporters. Besides issues like non-residents to be kept out of the ambit of section 206AA and Merchant exporters to be given Interest Equalization Benefits should also be looked into.
Besides Mr Ralhan reiterates that redressal of number of issues relating to infrastructure bottlenecks and transaction cost specially immediate introduction of Integrated Web Portal by CBEC for facilitating exports could provide much needed relief to the export sector even during such a difficult global economic scenario.
Date:
Monday, January 18, 2016
