The Hindu Business Line : Export goal pegged at $80 b by 2006-07

THE Medium-Term Export Strategy for 2000-07 targets exports of over $80 billion by 2006-07 and envisages raising the share in world trade to one per cent by the end of the Tenth Plan. The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Mr Murasoli Maran, unveiled the 214-page "strategic document," at a press conference here on Wednesday.

He claimed that the document was the product of a "massive and extremely meticulous exercise."

Mr Maran said that a compounded growth rate of 11.9 per cent for the next five years would be needed to achieve exports of around $80.48 billion, which would form one per cent of world trade.

"Achieving 11.9 per cent compounded growth is not a very ambitious goal, considering that we managed an average growth rate of 10 per cent during the previous decade. This raised our share in world exports from 0.41 per cent in 1992-93 to 0.67 per cent in 2000-01 and also the contribution of exports to our gross domestic product from 5.8 per cent in 1991-92 to 10.1 per cent last year. If the strategy outlined in the document is implemented, India can not only achieve one per cent share but also surpass it," the Minister noted.

Mr Maran pointed out that during 2000-01, exports (at $44.56 billion) had registered a growth rate of 21 per cent, which was the highest in the last decade. He, however, admitted that there had been a significant drop in the current fiscal "due to the unanticipated effect of the global slowdown." For the period April-November 2001, exports had grown by a mere 0.5 per cent and "we have revised the target for the fiscal at three per cent."

The Minister claimed that the new Medium-Term Export Strategy signalled a "paradigm shift" from the past strategies - whether it was the "Extreme Focus Product Strategy" of 1992, the "15*15 Matrix" of 1995 or the "Focus LAC" of 1997.

The first one sought to concentrate attention on 35 products and targetted 30 per cent growth in these for the medium term. The second aimed at market diversification of top 15 export products, while the third strategy was region-focussed and sought to boost exports of select items to the Latin American region.

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Export goal pegged at $80 b by 2006-07