The Commerce
and Industry Minister, Shri Murosali Maran, has announced an
export target of US $48.79 billion envisaging a growth rate
of 12 percent for the financial year 2002_03. This target for
India’s merchandise exports has been fixed after extensive consultations
with various Export Promotion Councils(EPCs) and Commodity Boards
and takes into account the performance of the last financial
year as well as an assessment of the trends during the current
year within the existing scenario and policy framework.
Apart from
the series of consultative meetings which were held since March,2002
as part of the exercise of fixing the export targets for 2002_03,
a meeting was held under the Chairmanship of the Commerce Secretary
Shri Dipak Chatterjee with the various EPCs and Commodity Boards
to ascertain their views on the likely prospects for the year
2002_03 and strategies proposed by them to step up exports in
the light of their assessment of the economic outlook.The target
is thus based on the projections made by EPCs and Commodity
Boards for their respective sectors. In the various meetings,
export promotion councils informed that efforts are being taken
to intensify market promotion efforts in key areas and to achieve
diversification of both markets and products so as to face the
growing competition in the overseas market. Based on the Medium
Term Export Strategy announced by the Deptt. of Commerce and
the action plans prepared by the EPCs/ CBs, specific product
and market related strategies are planned.Special focus will
be on the markets of Latin America,Africa, CIS apart from US.
