The Hindu : Business : Agri export zones policy to be reviewed

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Wednesday, Dec 27, 2006
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Agri export zones policy to be reviewed

Special Correspondent

Niryat Shree, Niryat Bandhu awards presented; special award given to Export Credit Guarantee Corporation

— PHOTO: R. V. MOORTHY

SCALING NEW HEIGHTS: (from left): M. B. N. Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, Canara Bank, S. C. Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, Punjab National Bank, Pawan Gupta, PP Jewellers, and V. Balasubramaniam, President, Reliance Industries, during the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) awards presentation function in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath on Tuesday asked exporters to look at the potential of agriculture and agricultural products. He indicated that the Government was planning a review of the policy on Agri Export Zones (AEZs), as they had failed to take-off in a noticeable way even after five years of existence.

"The agriculture sector has to be sustainable in India. With 650 million people engaged in agriculture, contributing just 23 per cent of the GDP, there is a need to focus on identifying areas for increasing agricultural exports,'' he said at an export award function of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).

He said exports were an important ingredient of economic growth, adding that export of services and goods would grow to $225-250 billion this year.

Mr. Kamal Nath said exporters would have to help the Government in redesigning the export basket to bring in new goods and markets like Africa, Caribbean and the CIS countries.

The Minister, who gave away the FIEO export awards — Niryat Shree and Niryat Bandhu — for 2003-04 and 2004-05, called upon the FIEO to undertake a study on how to boost agricultural exports in the next five years. "The FIEO must do a study to strategise agriculture exports with focus on processed food. Indian agriculture has to be engaged with the global economy,'' he said.

He acknowledged that infrastructure was a problem area for an agri export strategy.

Talking on the proposed review of the AEZs policy, he said these zones, which related to agro-climatic regions and were generally spread over a district, had to be transformed and "we will bring in necessary policy changes to facilitate it so that it can get a boost.''

Incidentally it is through the AEZ policy that the government provides support for development of needed infrastructure like storage, transport, processing and value addition facilities.Lauding the exporters for exceeding the target set for exports, he assured the exporting community of the Government's continued support to achieve higher targets in future.

Niryat Shree was awarded to exporters for achieving outstanding export performance, while Niryat Bandhu was awarded to export promotion agencies for providing valuable support to the exporting community.

On behalf of the federation, the Minister also conferred life-time achievement awards on bureaucrat P. M. A. Hakeem and industrialist R. L. Toshniwal. A special award was given to the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation for its support to exporters.

Earlier, Mr. Kamal Nath inaugurated the FIEO's newly constructed building, Niryat Bhawan, and requested the FIEO to consider opening similar offices in other metropolitan cities.

G. K. Pillai, Commerce Secretary, O. P. Garg, President, FIEO, B. S. Meena, Directorate General of Foreign Trade, and Ajay Sahay, DG, FIEO, were also present on the occasion.

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