Exporters association FIEO on Thursday urged the government to resolve the bank credit issue so as to enable the sector help achieve double digit growth.

PSU Banks officials including MDs, EDs, GMs, AGMs are not accessible to exporters particularly from the MSME sector. This has tightened the hands of these exporters to take orders, said FIEO President Ganesh Kumar Gupta.

Commerce Minister, Mr Suresh Prabhu, who is taking several steps to promote exports would not fructify if banks would not lend to exporters smoothly and at affordable rates, he added.

These banks demand bundles of documents, collateral and other papers for considering our applications for smaller limit (Rs one to five crores) of loan. It takes months and months to get these limits approved and in the mean time we loose our orders, he further said.

Gupta said similar is the problem with the ECGC, which is very reluctant to extend insurance cover. They reject claims on very flimsy grounds. 

I would urge the Commerce Minister to look at the matter on an urgent basis. If banks and ECGC continue to behave like this, we would not be able to register double digit growth rate in exports, the FIEO official said.