With the issuance
of Certificate of Registration by the Registrar of Societies,
the Export Promotion Council for Export Oriented Units (EOUs)
has been finally set up and come into force. Shri R. Veeramani,
Chairman, EPC for EOUs and Shri Sharad Jaipuria, Vice-Chairman,
EPC for EOUs on behalf of all EOUs and units in SEZs have welcomed
the formation of EPC for EOUs as their long felt need of the EOUs
for a separate Export Promotion Council has finally been fulfilled
and the Council has started functioning with immediate effect.
Shri Veeramani said
the EPC for EOUs would specifically cater to the needs of EOU/SEZ
Sector which has over 2300 operational EOUs/SEZ units spreading
all over the country providing direct employment to over 7 lakhs
people and has a credible achievement of 13% share in the national
exports. The export earnings of this sector in 2001-02 was Rs.
28,000 crores registering a growth of 14.66% over the previous
year and compares very favourably with the national export growth
of only 2.1% in the same period. The EOUs/SEZ units cover major
industrial sectors, like textiles, garments & yarn; food &
agro products, electronics & software, chemicals, engineering,
minerals, granites etc. The Council with the help of this sector
and export of high value added and manufactured products will
do its every effort to bring name and fame to the country. Shri
Veeramani added that the EOU sector has shown a double-digit continuous
growth much more than that of the national exports. This sector
has proved its uniqueness and the future direction of this country
in exporting manufacturing goods through value addition using
state-of-the art technology.
The Council with
the support of EOUs/SEZ Sector has an ambitious road map to achieve
and contribute 25% of the national export through manufacturing
exports by the year 2007. In the next couple of years this sector
is looking for achieving 10 billion US dollars exports. Shri Veeramani
said that this sector fully deserved an EPC because of its performance,
vast membership, regional and sectoral spread and employment provided.
We are happy that after two decades of operation of the EOU Scheme,
finally the EPC for EOUs has started functioning.
The Council has plans
to organise Seminars on issues pertaining to EOUs in different
states. To start with, the Council plans to organise such Seminars
at Hyderabad, Jaipur and Delhi. Shri Veeramani has thanked the
Union Commerce & Industry Minister, Shri Arun Shourie; Minister
of State for Commerce & Industry, Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy;
Commerce Secretary, Shri Dipak Chatterjee; and the Director General
of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Shri Lalit Mansingh and other senior
officials of the Ministry of Commerce for all the help and cooperation
in the formation of the Council. Shri Veeramani also assured the
EOUs and SEZs that this Council will take care of all their problems
with total dedication in a time bound manner.
