Exporters seek to take advantage

New Delhi: Exporters on Wednesday said that the US-China trade war could offer an opportunity for India.

“The imposition of tariff on a range of products by China on US and vice-a-versa has provided India an opportunity to increase its exports to two major economies particularly where India was competing with US in China or with China in US,” said  Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) president, Ganesh Kumar Gupta.

However, Mr Gupta said that this will require a time frame of 3-12 months for the transition. “In respect of China, while tariff advantage will come to India as some concession has also been given under APTA by China to India, the market access still remains a challenge particularly in agriculture products, pharma and IT,” he said.

Mr Gupta said that bilateral discussions are moving in positive direction and it is hoped the meetings on the sidelines of China International Import Expo in Shanghai during November 5-10, 2018 will hasten the process. Indian companies also have to look into capacity creation in some of the products to meet the rising demands in these economies, he said.

On US restriction on Iran, Mr Gupta said that exporters are at a complete sea with regard to exports to the Islamic nation. “We hope that once the issue of oil import is decided, some mechanism will be carved out for payments for exports transactions,” he said.

However, he said that few other issues also needs to be looked into to facilitate trade with Iran including set off/adjustment of export receivable against import payable from the same entity in Iran.

“Though the RBI guidelines allow such transactions, which are also recognised in the Foreign Trade Policy, but banks are not clear whether this facility is applicable for exports/ imports to/from Iran,” said Mr Gupta.

He said that banks are not agreeing to remit funds to exporters to their branch offices/ subsidiaries established in Iran.

“This is resulting in closing of the branch offices/subsidiaries of the Indian entities in Iran which will further jeopardises India’s exports prospects to Iran.”