A month ago, till September 1998, with exports at $217.24 million (from April 1998), the growth rate was positive at 3.35 per cent. In 1996-97, the export growth rate at 7.26 per cent was more than halved from 19.29 per cent recorded in the earlier year.

At a recent one-day seminar on `Exports From Plastic Sector -- Strategies For The Next Millenium', The Plastics Export Promotion Council (Plexconcil) chairman, Gaurav Swarup, said: Four major factors adversely affect exports from our sector; first, the general infrastructure that adds to the freight costs and results in global incompetitiveness; second, high interest rates and packing credit in foreign currency that takes care of only the working capital; third, complex export related procedures and fourth,the non-availability of locally produced plastic raw material atinternational prices.

Delivering his keynote address, ministry of commerce joint secretary N Ravi said: "Plastic exports have been reactive and appear to have taken place on the basis of a strategy of trying to sell the marketable surplus of domestic production over domestic consumption. "

"The behaviour of the plastic exporting community reflects the need for a more focused formulation of a strategy for producing goods exclusively for exports. Our competitors apart from enjoying the benefits of comparatively better infrastrcutre and higher levels of productivity, have been able to combine competence at home with demand elsewhere with greater focus."

Among other speakers at the seminar were Plexconcil Executive Director RP Kalyanpur, Tata International's manager (Corporate) Viren S Gupte, Export Credit and Guarantee Corporation's assistant general manager (Marketing and PR) M Kumar and EAD SGS India's divisional manager J Sebastine.

According to Swarup, export of raw materials contribute about 20 percent of plastic exports. Creating a framework to facilitate locally produced plastic raw materials at international prices will enthuse more small scale industries into exports.

According to Swarup, currently there are many hassles in the Exim policy schemes that aim at exempting customs and excise duties. Taxes like octroi and sales tax are still loaded on the export price, except for a few states that exempt the sales tax.

Further, development of human resources is the most important issue within the government hierarchy especially at the operating levels. Conflicting objectives like export promotion in the ministry of commerce and the loss of revenue through exports promotion by the department of revenue are examples of this necessity.

Lastly, highlighting the importance of internet Kalyanpur called upon the plastic exporting community to increase the use of Council's website. "This will facilitate both the domestic manufactures/exporters and also the foreign buyers to exchange necessary informationabout their prospective trade partners and also to project the image of the Indian plastic industry."