FIEO leaders for robust rail and road connectivity to increase exports

‘Telangana, a land-locked State, has to address this issue soon’

FIEO Director-General and CEO Ajay Sahai and FIEO Southern Regional Chairman Israr Ahmed at a seminar on exports in the city on Thursday.

Telangana stands to accelerate the pace of exports, particularly merchandise, if the issue of logistics from the land-locked State that pushed up the cost for the exporters is addressed.

This was the message the leaders of Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) sought to highlight at a seminar on ‘Exports from Telangana – Issues and Prospects’ here on Thursday. They were not the only ones as the need for a robust rail and road connectivity to move goods fast to the ports on east and west coast was also echoed by a few participants.

Behind their emphasis was the scope for Telangana to achieve more by tapping the opportunities in many sectors other than the organic and pharmaceuticals that now account for nearly 60% of the over $7-billion merchandise exports from the State.

“We believe lot more sectors should be given more importance as they have a huge [export] potential,” FIEO Southern Regional Chairman Israr Ahmed said, counting agriculture, natural stones, jewellery, engineering and handicrafts in the list.

Leather, he added, was another area of growth possibility. Teams of the Council of Leather Exports from Chennai and Kanpur were likely to visit Warangal where the State government has planned a leather park. The peculiar problem that Telangana faces, however, as a land-locked State has to be addressed. “The cost of transportation [to the ports] is quite high,” Mr. Ahmed said.

There could not be a better time to strengthen the infrastructure. FIEO Director-General and CEO Ajay Sahai said the tariff war between the U.S. and China has opened new avenues of growth for India. The need is for facilitating creation of new production capacities, if those existing were inadequate, by addressing land and regulatory issues. Companies having facilities in both China and the U.S. are looking to move to other locations, something India should capitalise on.

Describing Telangana as a State with huge promise, potential and possibilities, he underscored the need to improve the quality of roads, to have more ICDs, pack house, refrigerated vans, temperature-controlled warehouses for agriculture products and a food lab in Nizamabad and Zaheerabad.

Telangana Industries and IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan said the State was targeting doubling of the exports in the next five years. It had engaged FIEO to formulate exports strategy. Principal GST Commissioner M.R.R. Reddy and Additional DGFT S.B.S. Reddy also spoke.