The growth story of our economy continues to be an inspiring one, the attention-grabbing part being the renewed momentum displayed by the manufacturing sector. Indeed, our manufacturing index has notched 8.7% growth in the first eleven months of the fiscal year bringing back reminiscences of the boom period of 1993-96 when manufacturing performance was at its zenith. There is without question, significant impetus being generated by buoyant demand which when supported by productivity gains as well as a facilitative policy environment is leading us to move upscale on our performance indicators. It is hoped that our economic performance would gather an onward thrust after this year's budget which has imparted medium term growth impulses to the economy.

Similarly, it is heartening to note that our exports have also displayed a shining performance thereby propelling the Commerce Minister to revise the export target from $88 billion to $92 billion for 2005-06. I am quite optimistic about reaching the target especially since the annual supplement 2005 to the five year Exim Policy announced by the government boasts of a number of forward looking measures to impart dynamism to India's growing export performance.

It must be acknowledged that the Commerce Minister has done his best to spruce up the existing Exim Policy. The Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) Scheme has been made flexible, fast performing companies have been promised a reduction in export obligation and advanced licence schemes have been clubbed into one. Besides, the government has announced concessional rates and reduced export obligation for the SSI sector and there are special packages for promotion of agri and processed food sectors including marine industry, poultry, dairy, handloom, tea etc, which would go a long way to diversify our export basket and enhance the competitiveness of our exports.

What is particularly heartwarming is that our Exim Policy has made a sincere attempt to push changes in policy and procedures so as to pave the way for a partnership approach between the industry and the government, a crucial move for doubling India's merchandise exports in the next five years. In fact, I strongly believe that in the current global trade dynamics, only a partnership approach with the government acting as a facilitator can help India in assuming its rightful place amongst leading world players.

Further more, the transaction costs are sought to be brought down considerably through a plethora of procedural simplification measures. Added to this is the long overdue and laudable step to involve state governments in export promotion efforts. I only hope that the policy announcements, made with gusto, are implemented with the same zeal with which they are pronounced and that too within a stipulated time horizon.

In my perception the impact of such major policy strides has not been lost to the world. Indeed, the world has started viewing India in a new light and is continuously revising upwards its prognosis about the Indian economy. The case in point is the recent study conducted by Deutsche Bank which says that India will be among the top five growth centres between 2006 and 2020.

I would also like to add that the economic 'miracle' unleashed by our country has helped to rapidly alter our geopolitical equations with countries across the globe. Hence it is not surprising that the last few days has been a rare high noon for Indian diplomacy. This is borne out by the recent visit of the Prime Ministers from our two important neighbouring countries of China and Pakistan in what is generally regarded as fruitful visits in both strategic and economic terms. And the summit level meet with the US, the role economic superpower, is also very much on the agenda.

But having said this, let me state that despite the high points achieved in our interaction with the rest of the world we are still some distance from realizing the object of our dreams. I strongly feel that for bringing our vision to fruition, we should make concerted efforts to rededicate ourselves to address the critical inadequacies of our economy including infrastructure bottlenecks especially upgradation of port handling facility and other support infrastructure. Special efforts should be made to make finances available for domestic and export industry at competitive rates and there should stipulation of a time bound implementation of the committed incentives and facilities

Finally, we need to recognize that in the current situation the focus has to shift from differentiating between export and domestic markets and evolve an integrated approach to solve the common problems faced by industry. After all, we would all agree it is only by accelerating the pace of economic growth that we would ultimately be able to realize our ambitious export targets and realize the dreams visualized for our country..

(K N Memani)
President