AMBITIOUS TARGET OF US $ 1600 MILLION SET FOR HANDICRAFT EXPORTS

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The economic importance of handicrafts lies in its high employment potential, low capital investment, high value addition and high demand in domestic and overseas markets. While presenting the 12th Export Awards for Handicrafts, Minister of Textiles, Mr. Kashiram Rana said that at present there are more than 48 lakh artisans working in the handicrafts sector, and most of them are from the weaker sections of society. The main concern of the Government is to improve the economic status of these craftspersons. With this in view, a number of schemes have been introduced by the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts) under the social security net. These include the National Awards Scheme for Master craftspersons, giving pension to Master craftspersons who have won National Awards, offering workshed-cum-housing to them, besides cover under Group Insurance and Mediclaim schemes. He stressed that the objective of these schemes is to substantially improve the socio-economic conditions of the craftspersons. Mr. Rana disclosed that exports of handicrafts excluding carpets, in the year 2001-2002 have reached Rs. 6769.50 crores. Except last year, handicraft exports have witnessed a constant average annual growth of 15% in last ten years. The reason for the decline in exports last year is due to global slow down as well as the adverse impact of 11th September incident in the US which happens to be the largest market for Indian handicrafts. But, knowing the resilience of the handicraft exporters and their enterprising spirit, he expressed the confidence that the target of US$1600 million set for handicraft exports in 2002-2003 will be achieved. But for achieving this target the exporters should make a special effort to understand buyer's changing tastes, preferences and inclinations, design and organise products and their marketing to match these precise needs. Among the selling factors which have been identified in the global market today are technology and innovation; products made with use of latest technology and techniques, are innovative in design, material and attract most buyers anywhere in the world today. These factors highlight the need for research & development in areas such as technology, manufacturing process, designing, product development, use of embellishments and composite items for value addition, besides understanding international marketing trends, he emphasised. The Minister of Textiles said that the new Exim Policy is an indicator of the direction in which export sector will grow. In the new Policy, the cottage and handicrafts sector has been specially singled out for special emphasis; it has been treated as a separate entity in the Policy, thereby clearly indicating the priority status it has been endowed with by Government as one of the important earners of foreign exchange for the country, and that too with very negligible import content. The Mid Term Export Strategy aims at achieving a compound annual rate of growth of 12% which should raise the share of our exports in world trade to 1% by 2007 from the present level of 0.67. The Strategy thus envisages doubling the present exports of US$46 billion to more than US$80 billion over the 10th Five Year Plan. To achieve this target one has to look at international trade as an engine of growth. In this greatly liberalized and open world trade scene, in order to succeed in trade, he urged upon the exporters to build up considerable capabilities to create an export market for our goods and services. Minister said that Government in close co-ordination with exporters and office of the Development Commissioner (handicrafts) has worked out a long term strategy for increasing India's share to one per cent in the global export market. This includes providing separate entity to cottage and handicraft sector in the recently announced EXIM policy, easy access to Market Initiative Scheme (MAI), creating of Special Economic Zones, introduction of specialised export marketing programmes, design development, technical up-gradation of the sector, revival of languishing crafts and creating an atmosphere conducive to exports. Mr. Rana expressing his concern over regional imbalance said that the share of handicraft exports from the Southern and the Eastern Region is only about 10% and 4% respectively of the total exports of handicrafts from India. There is, therefore, an urgent need for continuing measures to correct this regional imbalance. Shri Rana lauded the role of Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) for initiating number of promotional programmes including setting up of its offices in Chennai, Calcutta and Bangalore to boost export of handicrafts form these regions. Shri V. Dhananjaya Kumar, Minister of State for Textiles, speaking on the occasion said that handicrafts sector has become most vital part of our economy, both for generating employment as well as important earners of foreign exchange to the country. This sector being highly labaour intensive and spread all over country provides employment to weaker sections of our society both in rural and urban areas including women. Government on its part to encourage handicrafts sector has assigned it high priority targeting not only growth in employment but also quantum jump in export earning. Shri S.B. Mohapatra, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles urged the Indian handicraft exporters to further upgrade their skills and develop products of international standards and quality, which will help them in achieving the export target. Smt. Tinoo Joshi, Development Commissioner for Handicrafts speaking on the occasion said that the Indian handicraft exporters with the help Textile Ministry and EPCH had taken several activities in the recent years to improve the product development aspect of handicrafts. Some of the promotional activities taken by the Development Commissioner, Handicrafts and EPCH include organising workshops and seminars for promotion of handicrafts in prime craft pockets. Highlighting the initiatives taken by EPCH, the Chairman Shri Kamal Chandra Agarwal said that in order to put various crafts in the export basket to maximize the export earnings the Council has started various ambitious schemes such as providing services of foreign designers, technical development workshops, marketing workshops with the help of international experts, UL Certification, Bar Coding to update the sector. Mr. Agarwal drew the attention of the Minister towards differentiation between two types of export incomes one in DTA and the other in EOU, EPZ and SEZ and different taxation for both. He urged the minister to tax units similarly instead of giving full tax holiday to units in EOUs, EPZs and SEZs which are allowed to sell their 50% production in DTA. On the other hand, non special zone exporters are exporting 100 percent of their production without sale in DTA, yet they have to pay tax on half of their export income. He urged the Minister to declare Moradabad, Saharanpur, Jodhpur and Narsapur as Special Economic Zones (SEZ). These four craft pockets contribute 46% of the export of handicrafts. Minister presented 54 awards for various handicraft product categories including art metalware, woodwares, zari handicrafts, iron crafts and papier machie, apart from certificates of merit and a trophy for over all export performance. The awards have been instituted by the EPCH to boost the moral of exporters.