Finance Minister P Chidambaram, on Friday, said that the right level of rupee would be between 59 and 60 a dollar, and the currency should not overshoot that level.
“But that is not something I am willing to pronounce on,” said Mr. Chidambaram,while addressing a a meeting organized by the Federation of Indian Exports Organizations (FIEO) here.
The Finance Minister said that the global economy was changing. “Things have changed. In the U.S. economy, there is clearly an upswing. In Europe too, some countries, particularly the U.K., are showing better growth. China is expected to grow at 7 per cent. Even Japan is expected to show an unprecedented 3 per cent growth,” he said.
He said the U.S., Europe, and China, followed by Japan and South East Asia, were important export markets for India. He asked exporters to competitively push their products in these markets as well as emerging markets. He reiterated that the government was committed to giving boost to exports, and was in talks with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to make export credit cheaper.
The government had been responsive to the suggestions made by exporters and had taken several measures to simplify import-export related procedures, he said. The Padmanabhan Committee had studied the issue of export credit in detail but mentioned that putting exports under priority sector might affect some other sectors. Under priority sector lending, banks lend 40 per cent of their loans to sectors such as agriculture and small scale industries.
Exporters, meanwhile, have demanded greater government support to push exports. They called for setting up of an export development fund, with contribution from the government as well as the industry, to boost export promotion.
Exporters also demanded a single-window service or a nodal officer system to deal with various central excise, customs and service tax issues.
