Exporters' association FIEO has recently pointed out to some major challenges, including global trade war and poor credit flow, which are currently facing the Indian export sector.

FIEO President Ganesh Kumar Gupta said that the WTO has downwardly revised the forecast for the global trade both for the year 2018 and 2019 putting it at 3.9% (earlier forecast 4.4%) and 3.7% (earlier 4%) respectively.

Since Indian exports have always been influenced by the growth in global trade, the downward revision does not augur well for the future, he added.

Additionally,  the weaker Rupee has not benefited exports to the extent anticipated for various reasons, including faster depreciation of currency of countries like Argentina, Braqzil, Turkey, South Africa, etc.  

A lot of exporters have already hedged their risk and thus the depreciation has not affected them in any way, he added.

The FIEO chief also expressed concern over poor flow of credit from the banking sector. The export credit declined by 26.4% in the financial year ending March, 2018, he pointed out.

Gupta also said that the liquidity of the sector is further stressed with the blockage of funds in GST refund.

While refund process has improved in last 6 months or so, yet the refund can only be claimed after manufacturing of goods and exports with a lead time of about 3-9 months depending on the production cycle, he added.