Reintroduce Interest Subvention scheme to help small exporters: FIEO

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SME Times News Bureau | 17 Dec, 2014
The government should reintroduce the Interest Subvention Scheme with effect from the next fiscal to help exporters, particularly the small enterprises engaged in exporting, said Federation of Indian Export Organisations ( FIEO) President M Rafeeque Ahmed.

In a press statement, the FIEO chief reiterated his demand for immediate reintroduction of Interest Subvention Scheme with effect from 1st of April, 2014 as interest burden is hitting the small exporters who are losing their export competitiveness saddled with high interest rates.

Reacting to the recently released export figures for October, he said that the positive growth of 7.3% in exports in the month coming on the heel of negative growth in October is very encouraging.

According to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), exports in November increased by 7.27 percent at $25.96 billion than the level of $24.20 billion during November 2013.

For the period of April-November 2014-15, exports grew by 5.02 percent at $215.75 billion from $205.36 billion.

Ahmed pointed out that many of the sectors which exhibited decline in October have posted good results in November including Gems & Jewellery, Drugs & Pharmaceuticals, Engineering Goods, Cotton Yarn Fabrics and made-ups, Manmade Yarn & Fabrics, Coffee, Spices, and Carpets.

While healthy growth have been witnessed in Readymade Garments and Organic & Inorganic sector, our worry has been the Marine sector which showed a decline in November, added Ahmed.

" With little push in next four months, we would be able to achieve the export target of US$ 340 billion fixed for the current fiscal. The exports have already reached US$ 216 billion and with exports of US$ 31 billion each months, we would reach the target,". the FIEo chief said.