Exporters not getting enough attention, funds: FIEO

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SME Times News Bureau | 26 Mar, 2010
Exporters are not getting enough attention from the government and the funds allocated to the sector under different schemes and incentives are not sufficient, said the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) recently.

The government is not giving enough priority to exporters and the funds provided to the Commerce Ministry for promotion of different schemes and incentives is minuscule, FIEO President A. Sakthivel was quoted as saying by a news agency.

He pointed out that funds allocated under the Market Access Initiative (MAI), which have been pegged at Rs 125 crore, is not enough to incentivise exporters.

The exporters' body also raised demand to for extension of the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (NREGs) to the export sector.

"The National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (NREGS) should be extended to the export sector. We will pay more and guarantee 300 days of employment," the FIEO chief was quoted by the news agency.

According to Sakthivel the highly employment-oriented exporting sectors like leather, handicrafts and leather can impart the basic training to labourers.

He added, as stated by the news agency report, that the NREG scheme is costing the exchequer a huge Rs 40,100 crore but it is making the labourers lazy and they are not getting training.

With the country's export sector gradually recovering since November 2009, exporters' manpower requirements are slowly improving. Enough labour for the low-end jobs is not available.

After 13 successive months of decline since October 2008 on account of the global economic meltdown, India's merchandise exports grew in January at 11.5 percent to US $14.34 billion, 9 percent to US $14.6 billion in December, and 18.2 percent in November at US $13.2 billion year-on-year .