Centre working to make India net exporter of chemicals and petrochemicals

Ahmedabad, Sep 11 (PTI) The Centre is working towards making the country a net exporter of chemicals and petrochemicals and the soon-to-be-announced an integrated policy for the sector will have the measures to fill in this gap, chemicals, and petrochemicals secretary P Raghavendra Rao said Tuesday.

Currently the country imports fertilizers and chemicals worth over Rs 3 trillion and while exports are worth around Rs 2 trillion, leaving a gap of around Rs 1 trillion annually, Rao said.

"We want to see a scenario, maybe in the next 10 years, not only to bridge this gap but also to become a net exporter of fertilizers and chemicals," Rao told an industry event organized by Ficci here.

The share of chemicals and petrochemical sector is 15 -16 percent in the manufacturing sector and we would like to take it to 25 percent, Rao added. On the draft integrated policy for the sector, he said "our latest thinking is that, based on the inputs from various sources, we need to come up with an integrated policy for both chemicals and petrochemicals sector.

Our attempt should be to announce the policy in this financial year. We may also try to bring it earlier." Rao admitted that all the four PCPIRs (petroleum, chemicals, and petrochemicals investment regions) are facing "lots of issues in terms of infrastructure, new investment, incentives and feedstock".

These four PCPIRs are located in Gujarat, Andhra, Odisha, and Tamil Nadu.