Capturing 1per cent of global export market seen earlier than 2007
Kolkata: India’s target of capturing one per cent of the world’s export market by 2007 is well on track and the country might achieve the goal earlier than expected, according to the director general of foreign trade (DGFT) L Mansingh. Speaking at a post-Exim Policy open house meet organised jointly by the Federation Of Indian Export Organisations (Fieo) and the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce here on Monday, Mansingh said, the directorate will not revise its targets and early indications suggest that India is well on course as its share of the world’s export market has already climbed up to 0.8 per cent from 0.67 per cent earlier. At this rate we will achieve the target ahead of schedule,” Mansingh said. The only dampener so far has been the month of April 2003 where the growth in India’s exports has been 8.7 per cent against 18 per cent in April 2002. “SARS and the Iraq war combined to bring down this figure since many export orders to US were put on hold. But now things are looking up and oil prices are coming down, which is an indication of the economy showing signs of recovery,” Mansingh said.
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Talks on tariff cuts on industrial goods deadlocked
New Delhi: One more deadline set by the Doha declaration has been missed. Though an agreement on establishing modalities on market access for non-farm products was to be reached by May 31, during the negotiations in Geneva from May 26-28, no worthwhile progress could be made. New Delhi was represented by an official delegation at the three-day meet in Geneva. The meeting was based on a draft proposed by the chairman of the negotiating committee on market access which was circulated to all the World Trade Organisation members. But the team wanted to study the draft before agreeing to the formula and sectoral approach for reduction/ elimination of tariffs, say commerce ministry officials. As per the draft, all non-farm tariffs are to be reduced on a line-by-line basis using the formula applied to the base rates. New Delhi, officials, say would like to have a higher coefficient prescribed in the formula so that it results in lower rates of tariff reduction for its products.
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