PM Modi addresses heads of Indian missions abroad & Export Promotion Councils on ‘local goes global’
NEW DELHI – 6th August’2021 – Today, Prime Minister of India interacted with Heads of Export Promotion Councils and Indian Missions abroad along with stakeholders of the trade & commerce sector via video conferencing giving a clarion call for ‘Local Goes Global – Make in India for the World’. The Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts organized its video conferencing connectivity along with its member exporters from Expo Mart at Greater Noida.
More than 100 leading exporters were present along with Raj Kumar Malhotra, Chairman-EPCH, Ravi K Passi, Immediate Past Chairman-EPCH, Kamal Soni, Vice-Chairman-EPCH, Prince Malik, Member-COA, Arshad Mir, Chairman-Handicraft & Carpet Sector Skill Council & Member-COA, R. K. Verma, Executive Director-EPCH, Simrandeep Singh Kohli, Member COA, Avdesh Aggarwal, General Secretary Moradabad Handicraft Exporters Association, Moradabad, Ashok Arora, Delhi, Rishi Soni, Lali Singh, Guglani, Deepak Gupta, Manu Gulati, Vineet Bhatia and many others.
The Prime Minister in his address spoke about the importance of Global value chain, Logistics-last mile connectivity, ease of doing business, insurance coverage for exports, rationalisation of export incentive schemes, one district one products, leveraging strength of Indian diaspora overseas, innovating according to the challenges, prioritizing exports from state and targeting overseas markets, exploring new markets and identifying and innovating new products, market intelligence through Indian missions overseas, stressed on quality & reliability and value added products and encouraged start-ups. He assured all possible help from the Government to realise the dream of Atmnirbhar Bharat.
EPCH in advance had met with the Secretary, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India and had submitted the following points as the need of Industry which were well addressed in the highlight of issues by Ambassador of India to China Vikram Misri. Following issues were highlighted in the paper by EPCH:-
- Restoration of duty free import provision
- Non availability of containers and high container charges
- Restoration of provision of opening warehouses overseas in the mai scheme of department of commerce
- Release of funds of meis and announcement of rodtep rates
Exports have a huge employment generation potential, especially for MSMEs and high labor-intensive sectors, with a cascading effect on the manufacturing sector and the overall economy. The objective of the interaction was to provide a focused thrust to leverage and expand India’s export and its share in global trade. The interaction aimed to energize all stakeholders towards expanding our export potential and utilizing the local capabilities to fulfil the global demand.
Raj Kumar Malhotra, Chairman-EPCH on the occasion said that address by the Prime Minister of India was very encouraging and has certainly invigorated the entire handicraft exporters’ fraternity and motivated them to strive towards achieving higher export growth in years to come.
Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Director General-EPCH and Chairman-IEML said, the Government of India lays great emphasis on increasing exports in view of critical role in expanding economic activity and generating employment opportunities. The Department of Commerce has set a target of US$ 400 billion for merchandise exports in the current financial year 2021-22. This target has been set keeping in view the immense export potential, past trends and various other initiatives taken by the Government and the need to kick start economic activity which has been adversely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr. Kumar further said that despite the current pandemic, the handicraft sector has managed to register a marginal growth of 1.62% in 2020-21 and currently stands at Rs.25,680 crores. Keeping in view the immense export potential of handicrafts, we are hoping to grow by around 10-15% for the next five years to cross Rs.50,000 crores.
The meeting was addressed by Piyush Goyal, Minister of Textiles, Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India, S. Jaishankar, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Govt. of India and Ambassadors / High Commissioners of Bangladesh, Brazil, China, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and others.
The exports of handicrafts for April-March of the current financial year 2020-21 is at Rs. 25679.98 crores (US$ 3459.75million) registering a marginal growth of 1.62 % (Rupee terms) and (-) 2.93 % (dollar terms) over the same period last year. However, as far as exports for the month of (April-June) 2021-22 (provisional) is at Rs. 4642.76 crores (US$ 629.27million) and a growth of 82.89% in Rupees terms and 88.09% in Dollar terms, informed Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Director General-EPCH.
