Govt to soon take steps to help exporters: Anand Sharma.

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma on Tuesday said the government will soon take steps to help labour intensive sectors like textiles and handicrafts that are yet to recover from the global slowdown in demand.

``Many sectors like textiles and handicraft are not doing well. We will be taking some measures soon,`` Sharma told reporters after meeting an exporters delegation led by CII.

Garment exports went down by 14% during April-June quarter year-on-year. In the same period, handicrafts shipments were only worth USD 470 million of India`s USD 51 billion exports.

Sharma is meeting industry bodies and export promotion councils to analyse export performance of various sectors and future policies on exports.

Industry chamber Ficci had called upon the minister on Monday.

``We had detailed consultations...these always get factored in when we take decisions about interventions, change in policies, if required, incentives,`` Sharma said.

Other issues like availability of credit to exporters also came up for discussions during the meeting.

The ministry recently completed a review of different sectors and there were indications that the exporters in the labour intensive segments may get some fiscal sops.

Sharma further said the committee headed by Minister of State of Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia to suggest ways to reduce transaction cost for exporters has almost completed the work assigned to it.

``We have been concerned about the high transaction cost,`` he said.

Transaction cost works out to 7-8% of total export value in the country at present.

The exports in June this year went up by 30.4% over the year-ago period, still they were short of the pre-financial crisis period.

Source : myiris.com