The export trends up to October this year have been encouraging and the growth rate has been consistently higher than the target, noted Mr Abdullah while speaking at a meeting with chairpersons of the export promotion councils (EPCs) and commodity boards here. The meeting was organised by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).

"We are reaching a point on the export graph where we can accelerate and take off. However, there is no reason for us to be complacent about our performance. We have to strive to do as well, if not decidedly better than the south-east Asian countries, he stated.

Mr Abdullah emphasised that India would have to intensify its efforts to become more and more competitive in the international market in terms of price as also quality, and assured that his ministry would do its best to assist the exporting community in achieving common goals. He urged the councils to finalise the medium-term export strategy for the next five years (2001-2006), based on advance and detailed planning for promotion of exports.Mr Abdullah also stated that the government had circulated model articles of association for adoption by the councils to rationalise and streamline their working and make them more effective instruments for achieving a higher export growth, in view of the changed global marketing scenario.

Guidelines had also been issued for direct participation of EPCs without necessarily involving the India Trade Promotion Organisation for product-specific trade fairs in an attempt at further liberalisation of procedures.

The EPCs should complement one another's efforts by regular sharing of experience about markets, potential and success stories, which help bring down costs and increase export competitiveness.

Mr Abdullah saw a definite role for the councils in promoting e-commerce aggressively, particularly B2B transactions, and stressed that they should supplement the government's efforts in this direction by coming forward to invest in both hardware and software.

FIEO president Navratan Samdria reiterated that growth trends this fiscal had been satisfactory with the first half registering an impressive growth and promising to close with a figure much higher than the target of 18 per cent.