Make price adjustments to retain market share: Goyal to exporters

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Monday suggested exporters to make temporary adjustments in prices to meet short-term challenges and retain market share.

He also called for exploring export potential of unique products such as castor and instructed officials of the ministry to help promote those items.

The minister ''told industry to strive to retain export markets even if they are to make temporary changes in their pricing structure to accommodate short-term challenges'', an official statement said.

Goyal said this while chairing a meeting of representatives of export promotion councils.

The meeting came amid the moderating export growth in the last few months.

The country's exports rose by 4.82 per cent to USD 35.45 billion in September, even as the trade deficit widened to USD 25.71 billion.

The minister also asked them to utilise the disruptions in the global trade in their favour by occupying the space yielded by some countries.

Goyal asked officials to analyse export data on the basis of sectors, commodities and markets to find out areas of opportunity for Indian exports.

''The minister called for open channels of communication between export promotion bodies and industry bodies with the government so that issues being faced may be flagged and resolved at the earliest,'' it added.

Meanwhile, exporters raised issues such as extending support measures to services sector and creation of export credit refinance facility.

They also asked for withdrawal of the 15 per cent export duty on stainless steel and alloy steel items as the duty had significantly affected engineering exports.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) also urged the restoration of the interest equalisation benefit of 5 per cent to manufacturer MSMEs as cost of credit is adversely impacting exporters.

''With headwinds being faced in merchandise trade, we need to push our services exports in the current fiscal so that we have the necessary cushion both on trade deficit and current account deficit,'' a FIEO official said, adding exporters should also be encouraged to invest in export marketing through tax deductions.

Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) raised payment issues with Russia, alternative payment mechanism for Myanmar and withdrawal of EU (European Union) GSP (Generalised System of Preferences).

Under the GSP, EU provides duty concessions to goods coming from vulnerable developing nations.

In a statement, EEPC India Chairman Arun Kumar Garodia said that Russian bank Sberbank is charging higher exchange rate than the market, which is leading to rise in transaction cost.

Garodia pointed out that there are about 12 or 13 small Russian banks which are not on the sanctioned list, and they are transferring the payments from the Russian side to the Indian exporters' banks in US dollar.

He also said that public sector banks like Bank of India and Union Bank of India are crediting the payments to the exporters' accounts and giving the BRC (Bank Realisation Certificate).

''However, private sector banks are not doing that and banks like Axis Bank are not even handling documents or giving packing credit,'' he said.