Engineering exporters have sought a technology upgradation fund from the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, in the Budget for boosting competitiveness in view of an ambitious exports target of $125 billion to be achieved by 2013-14 for the sector.
“...it’s high time they must do something. Without a technology upgradation fund, competing (with other countries such as China) will be very difficult. We have submitted it to the Ministry,” the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) Executive Director, Mr R. Maitra, told PTI.
In its strategy paper, the Commerce Ministry has set an exports target of $500 billion by 2013-14. For the engineering sector, which accounts for about one-fourth of the country’s total merchandise shipments, a target of $125 billion been fixed for the period.
Mr Maitra said the council has submitted its plan to the Finance Ministry for a technology upgradation corpus, which would be monitored both by the industry and Government.
“...industry has to contribute a certain per cent, the balance has to come as a soft loan or interest-free loan from the Government,” he said.
Engineering exports grew by 21 per cent year-on-year to $49.7 billion during April-January of this fiscal.
Mr Maitra said the exporting community “does not foresee much” growth during this fiscal due to the global demand slowdown.
“Engineering exports in this fiscal will remain at $60 billion as they were in 2010-11,” he added.
He also raised concerns over the impact of recent rupee fluctuations on the sector’s growth.
During the April-January period this fiscal, overall exports aggregated $242.8 billion, a year-on-year growth of 25 per cent, thanks to the surge witnessed in the early months of the fiscal.
From a peak of 82 per cent in July, export growth slipped to 44.25 per cent in August, 36.36 per cent in September and 10.8 per cent in October.