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Hegde downscales export growth target to 15 per cent

Union Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde said the country would be able to achieve this year a revised export growth of 15 per cent as against the ambitious target of 20 per cent set by him in April last.

Addressing the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Sunday, he said he had fixed the target as 20 per cent to give a push to the exports which had stagnated during the last two years on the hope that the southeast Asian economic crisis would end by the middle of this year. "This, unfortunately, has not happened," he added.

Hegde pointed out that the world trade had gone down by four per cent this year, plunging the economies of even Asian giants like Japan and China into a crisis. The present situation was likely to continue for one more year, he added.

He said the markets for Indian exports had shrunk. Barring software, exports of Indian products including readymade garments and engineering goods had gone down, he added.

He said the major factors inhibiting economic growth in the country were lack of infrastructure and cumbersome procedures.

Hegde lamented that lack of standard highways and handling facilities at ports and airports was a major problem for exports. It sometimes took even weeks to ship goods after they reached the ports, preventing them from adhering to time schedules and spoiling consignments, he added.

He said, following his recommendation to set up a separate ministry for infrastructure, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had established a task force headed by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Jaswant Singh to look into the issue.

He said he had launched a new facilitation centre in his ministry to help solve problems faced by exporters. Also, the concessional export credit rate had been brought down from 12 to nine per cent, he added.

Hegde criticised some of the developing countries for levying anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on Indian goods including marine products, steel and pharmaceuticals.

UNI

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