 "Odisha's exports: A better future with international trade")
From left to right: Ramesh Mohapatra, President, Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Chairman, Magnum Seafood Limited; Vishal Kumar Dev IAS, Chairman and MD, Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation; Prahalathan Iyer, Chief General Manager, Export Import Bank of India; S S Acharya, DGM, Small Industries Development Bank Of India, Bhubaneswar; and A.O.Kuruvilla, Deputy Director - Trade And Education, WTC Mumbai, at Business Standard Smart Business in Bhubaneswar on 7th November 2014, in association with WTC Bhubaneswar and WTC Mumbai.
The Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) has asked Micro, Small and Medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Odisha to seek financing support from the bank through MSME clusters. “The Asian Development Bank has given a line of credit to Exim
Bank of $100 million to support MSMEs and MSME clusters. We can provide financing to such clusters,” said S Prahalathan, Chief General Manager, Exim Bank. The bank official said that in Odisha an engineering cluster can be developed in Mancheswar, a pharma cluster in Cuttack, a packaging cluster in Jagatpur, and a plastics cluster in Balasore.
He was speaking at a panel discussion on 'Odisha's Exports - Sail Towards a Better Future With International Trade'. The event was organized by Business Standard in association with the World Trade Centre (WTC).
Prahalathan also emphasized on collective branding, marketing and sourcing for MSMEs.
Stakeholders in the export sector, present in the meeting, called for redesigning Odisha's export policy to help achieve higher realisations from exports in the next 10 years compared to the current projections. "The target for the next 10 years should be $10 billion (or Rs 61,400 crore) of exports and not $6.35 billion (approximately Rs 39,000 crore) and accordingly, the state export policy should be reframed," said Ramesh Mahapatra, President, Utkal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (UCCI) in the panel discussion.
Vishal Dev, Industry Secretary and CMD, Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco), said that an aluminium downstream park is coming up at Angul in partnership with National Aluminium Company (Nalco). “We are also in discussion with Vedanta for another sector specific park in Jharsuguda,” he added. In addition, steel downstream parks are planned in Kalingangar, Angul, Dhenkanal and seafood processing parks at Balasore and Bhubaneswar.
The Odisha government is also hopeful that Shahi Exports Pvt Ltd will start a unit in the state and is also in talks with Madura Garments of Aditya Birla group for a textile cluster.
To overcome the resistances to land acquisition, the Idco CMD said that about 136,000 acres of land have been identified in major districts to create a land bank. He further said the state government's new Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR) is likely to be finalized by December.
Speaking on the occasion, AO Kuruvilla, deputy director (trade and education), WTC, said that with the establishment of WTC Bhubaneswar, Odisha is now connected to the powerful network of the WTC association connecting 340 world trade centres in 100 countries.
S S Acharya, DGM, Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), also spoke on the occasion.