The commerce ministry will soon unveil measures aimed at stepping up exports to the East Asian region and reversing the declining trend seen during 1997-98.
Commerce minister Ramakrishna Hegde yesterday initiated a dialogue with banks and industry chambers to chalk out a strategy to increase exports and investment in East Asia.
During 1997-98, India's exports to the Asean region stood at $2.3 billion, a decline of 17 per cent over the previous year, while imports during the same period increased by over 15 per cent.
At yesterday's meeting various measures were considered to prop up exports. These included provision of lines of credit by Exim Bank and others for sourcing capital goods, raw material, equipment etc from India by these countries, and issues relating to project exports including the possibility of having a national insurance account to cover risks of various kinds.
The meeting was attended by commerce secretary P P Prabhu, representatives of Exim Bank, ECGC, RBI, SBI, and apex chambers_-CII, Ficci and Assocham.
