Secretary-level meeting to be held tomorrow over coronavirus impact on trade, says Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced that a secretary-level meeting of different departments of ministries will be conducted over trade issues raised by different sectors in light of the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in China. The meeting will be held on Wednesday.

Speaking at a press briefing, Sitharaman said, "Couple of days ago, we have invited industries to share with us any thought about the impact of coronavirus outbreak in China. How the Indian industry, exporters or importers were affected by the outbreak." "Broadly today, the sectors which spoke were pharma, textiles, chemicals, electronics and IT hardware, solar, auto, surgical equipment, paints, fertilisers, chemical therapy, telecom, metals copper, glass, mobile manufacturing, edible oil, health, tourism, shipping and marine food products. Some have issued related to exports and some have issues with import of raw materials," the Finance Minister said.

"We have heard all of them and tomorrow in the afternoon, each of the secretaries from ministries have taken it upon themselves to collate the issues. Each one will be contacting other secretaries from various other ministries who come into the picture of all that was heard today. With the collated issues, talking to their respective secretaries, we expect to hold a meeting at the secretary-level of various departments concerned tomorrow in the afternoon," Sitharaman added. She also said that the principal economic advisor is also a "part of all this scheme of things".

"So all concerned departments will be contacted by the Finance Ministry, different secretaries and principal economic advisor," Sitharaman said. "The issues raised will be informed to them and then they would apply their mind and come back tomorrow afternoon so that we talk among ourselves about the possible solutions that we can handle, post which we will have discussion with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and some response will be announced soon," the Finance Minister added. (ANI)

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