Home > Tex Trade Monitor > Full Story

India’s share of world trade touches 0.8 per cent

PTI - Chennai

India is all set to achieve at least one per cent share of the world trade by 2007 well ahead of schedule, having already touched 0.8 per cent by the end of 2002, Mr L Mansingh, director general of foreign trade, (DGFT) said recently.

“The country’s share of world trade had already touched 0.8 per cent by the end of 2002, according to latest estimates,” Mr Mansingh said addressing a post-exim policy exporters’ meet organised by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), southern region, here. He said the year 2002-03 was marked by major economic milestones like the country’s exports crossing the 50 billion USD mark to touch 51.7 USD by March last by clocking a commendable 18 per cent growth.

Describing this as a “very progressive” indication, he said the main challenge, however, was to see that the transaction costs were brought down to the minimum through the concerted efforts of the commerce ministry, exporters, the state governments and the industrial organisations at the local level.

“Transaction costs will not come down unless the abuse of the facilities was minimised and leakage of revenues plugged,” he said. Mr Mansingh said export was no longer the “baby of the commerce ministry”, adding the involvement of the state governments was critical for achieving the desired export growth in the present scenario. Mr Mansingh called upon the state governments to come out with their own export policies and set up export commissions.