Export sector strengthening: Ricketts

The significance of strengthening the country exports is clearly reflected through the interim Governments creation of new policies to boost the export industry, says interim Minister for Trade and industry, Tom Ricketts.

Interim Government policies such as the National Export Strategy and its continuing emphasis on the private sector development road map and the Fiji Export council are some of the creations.

Mr Ricketts, speaking at the launching of the Fiji Island Trade and Investment Bureau organised 2008 DHL Exporters of the Year Award, said the theme of "Exports Enhancement: The path to economic growth", couldnt have arrived at a better timing when present challengers faced our exporters.

Meanwhile, the interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry had earlier stated that the exports sector has seen steady growth and the economy is benefiting from its re-exports of mineral fuels given the dramatic increase in the global fuel price.

"Exports for the first 5 months of 2008 totalled $507 million- up 24.2 per cent over the same period in 2007, a much improved performance compared to 2005 and 2006," he said.

Source-fijitimes.com

Market Access Initiative Scheme to promote exports

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) cleared proposed amendments to the Market Access Initiative (MAI) Scheme to enhance its scope and effectiveness. The MAI Scheme is implemented by the Commerce & Industry Ministry (Department of Commerce) to act as a catalyst to promote India’s exports on a sustained basis.

The existing scheme was formulated on focussed product -- focussed country approach to evolve specific strategy for specific market and specific product.

Financial assistance under the existing Scheme is provided to export or trade promotion organisations / exporters etc. for enhancing India’s exports through accessing new markets or through increasing the share in the existing markets. Financial assistance is also provided under the scheme for various activities such as participation in trade fairs abroad, opening of showrooms and warehouses etc.

Based on the feedback and suggestions received from all the stakeholders, the MAI scheme is now amended to include the following:

i) The scope of the scheme is being widened by allowing, inter-alia, the following additional activities to be eligible for financial assistance under the scheme: (a) Organising “Trade Festival of India” in select centres abroad to promote “Brand India” by showcasing India’s strength in services like health (Ayurveda and Yoga), Indian cuisine, tourism, culture etc., besides merchandise; (b) Capacity building and imparting training, upgradation / improvement of laboratories, universities, research institutions etc. for fulfilling sanitary & phyto-sanitary (SPS) measures; (c) Providing assistance for all trade related studies including Free Trade Agreement (FTA) / Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) etc.; and (d) Developing foreign trade facilitation web portal as well as to support cottage and handicraft units.


Source : fibre2fashion.com

Increase in rupee value may decrease exports

The recent appreciation of rupee by 9 percent between August 2006 and April 2007 is affecting Indian exporters severely. With cheaper US dollar, it is feared that the imports are going to increase. Currently imports are on the higher side with 35 percent while exports have registered a growth of 22 percent. This trade deficit will put pressure on foreign exchange earnings. In this situation, exporters are withdrawing from entering new contracts as the booming retail sector seems an easy option. Federation of Indian Exporters Organization President Ganesh K Gupta was concerned with this situation and expressed hope that Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath would address exporters' cry in Foreign Trade policy while the Reserve Bank of India would look into the issue in the forthcoming credit policy. Source : fibre2fashion.com

Steps to eliminate child labour from export-oriented industries

Government has taken a series of steps for elimination of child labour from export oriented industries.

This includes various measures taken by the export promotion councils to eliminate use of child labour and also the awareness and monitoring programmes conducted by the Export Promotion Councils for the purpose.

Government of India has taken up this issue of use of child labour in the export-orinted industries with all the Indian Embassies/High Commissions abroad to sensitize them on the issue of child labour and their possible impact.

Government has also taken up this matter with various trade councils to ensure that no child labour is employed by the member exporters.

Further, the steps taken by the Government in the carpet sector also include regular surveillance on child labour undertaken by a professional agency, setting up of National Level Steering Committee, formulation of a code of conduct for the various Carpet Export Promotion Councils to ensure that no child labour prohibited by law is employed.

For the rehabilitation of children withdrawn from hazardous work including the export-oriented industries, Government is also implementing the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme in 250 districts of the country which include the areas form where exports are being made from the country.

Action under the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986 is initiated against the employers who are found to beviolating the provisions of the Act.

This information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Shri Oscar Fernandes in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

Source : fibre2fashion.com

EU to Scrap Many Farm Import, Export Licences

As part of its drive to simplify the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), many of the licences required for commodity import and export will be abolished, or at least brought into line with a single set of rules, the European Commission said on Thursday. EU licences are now needed to import around 500 commodity products, a number that will be cut to 65 as of July 1. For cereals, for example, the number of products for which an import licence is required will be reduced from 133 to 21, it said.

From August, wine traders will be allowed to import any wine product permitted under EU regulations without a licence. At the moment, around 100 wine products must have import licences.

For exports, only 43 products will have to be accompanied by a licence. Export certificates for cereals will apply for just nine products, compared with 133 products now.

The EU licensing obligation would also be abolished for imports paid at full duty in the beef, veal and dairy sectors. But licences would continue to apply to some products imported under preferential trade terms, the Commission said.

"Operators will no longer have to apply for licences and deposit costly securities, and national authorities will no longer need to process them, thereby saving time and reducing costs," the Commission said in a statement.

"Many traders, importers and exporters will no longer need to apply for and subsequently manage licences at all -- those that do so will have fewer licences to deal with," it said.

Using licences allowed the Commission to carry out detailed monitoring of trade in often sensitive product areas and made it easier to anticipate trade developments.

Licences also allowed EU regulators to manage farm trade measures such as tariff quotas and export refunds, the statement said.

Last year, EU ministers agreed to strip dozens of layers of red tape from the CAP to simplify the lives of farmers producing everything from poultry, eggs and cereals to potatoes.

Much of EU bureaucracy was sliced through, with around 40 different regulations covering 21 commodity policy areas being replaced with just one framework law.

Source : flex-news-food.com

B2B Portals Transform International Trade to Simple Trade

Every entrepreneur’s dream is to graduate from one’s domestic trade level to international trade and thereby increase one’s profit margins manifold. Until few years ago this remained as a distant dream, but today it has been made a reality by the opportunities created by ingenious services provided by Business to Business (B2B) web portals. B2Bs have a database of exporters and importers around the globe and any legal business entity regardless of size can register in these portals. These portals provide two types of memberships, free membership and premium membership. Free membership is a trial version made available to the trader to understand the functions of the portal. But the premium membership gives maximum visibility and interactive facility to the trader to divine the desired result in a short span of time.History shows us that international traders used to just leave their places with their products or services, in search of new markets without any prior knowledge of the risks involved. Any such exploration in those days found success through sheer luck and these expeditions were not without any shortcomings either. They included risks related to expenditure, time and most importantly, lives of the people involved in the whole exercise. Those days, even after making a successful landing in a foreign territory, the traders had to encounter various issues like, language, socio-cultural differences and trading practices.

As the civilization evolved to the modernity of the present world, trading too got organized. With the deployment of modern trading practices in businesses around the globe enabled each and every trader to speak the universal language of business. Thus the trader was further able to de-risk the ill-effects of issues related to language, socio-cultural differences and trading practices. Moreover, the traders were emancipated from the fears of losing everything while foraying into new markets. Even though, the barriers for international trade vanished one by one, a seller to find a suitable buyer or vice versa beyond one’s market became a gargantuan task. During this period businesses survived solely on the basis of self network and through market to market publicity programs which involved enormous expenditure.

But B2B portals revolutionized the way the world is doing business right now. They are emerging as the next growth engine of Information Technology. B2Bs are the only interactive advertising tool and low cost trading tool available in the world of business today. The leading B2B portals are with a vast database of exporters and importers across the globe. B2Bs help especially small and medium enterprises to showcase their products or/and services in the world stage economically.

Skeptics of B2B’s still use their self networks to do business, by completely overlooking the expenditure, time and emotions incurred as a social obligation for the favors rendered to their self networks in the course of time. But when you become a premium member of a B2B, parties involved in the process only have to honor the business relationship. Those who suspect the authenticity of leading B2B portals either have used the services in the formative years of B2Bs’ existence or have never used them at all. The rental of a city hoarding for a month will cost more than the subscription amount currently charged by any leading B2Bs per annum. The kind of response one receives from such hoardings is subjected mainly to the place where it is displayed and various other factors. As a matter of fact, hoardings and similar advertisement strategies make one to be in one’s office in anticipation of business. On the contrary, the B2B portals’ premium memberships play dual role, one is that of the interest generated for one’s products or/and services through the above strategies and the other is that one can approach the traders in the related field without incurring any extra cost. Due to globalization, even domestic markets across the world, is becoming virtually an international market. To conclude, if a trader does not use the premium services of the B2Bs, it would be very difficult for one to survive in the prevailing competitive globalized market.

Source : www.importerbase.com