Reduction in Interest Rate can be stimulus to export growth: FIEO Chief

Reacting to the Trade Data released by the Government for the month of September, 2012 and for the period April-September of the current fiscal according to which exports have been valued at US$ 23.69bn and $143.67bn respectively, Mr M Rafeeque Ahmed, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said that this is on the expected lines because of the contraction in global demand. FIEO Chief added that even the WTO has also downwardly revised its forecast for the global trade for 2012 from 3.5% earlier to 2.7% now. FIEO Chief said that most of the countries are facing decline in their exports on account of global contraction. He, however, expressed hope that exports will soon start picking up as the global situation is slowly improving and the initiatives taken in the Foreign Trade Policy will also help to bring fruitful results.

FIEO Chief also said that the cost of credit is still a cause of concern for the export sector and a general reduction in the interest rate would benefit manufacturing as well as exports. He urged the Government to consider lowering of interest rates as top priority in order to give a boost to exports.