Punjab needs to set up export
linked industries: Dr. Dhawan
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Dr. R K Dhawan, Chairman(NR), FIEO (centre) addressing the meet. Others from left, are Mr. Ashwani Kumar, Dy. Regional Chairman (NR), EEPC; Mr. V K Gupta, Jt. DGFT, Ludhiana; Mr. I C Chadda, DGM, Central Warehousing Corporation and Mr. Sharad Aggarwal, Convenor Hand Tools Panel, EEPC. |
During 2005-06, Jalandhar registered an export growth of 22% over previous year. Ludhiana registered a growth of around 27% during the same period. But despite impressive growth figures in percentage terms, the exports of the two districts together failed to reach Rs.10,000 crore mark, a figure achieved alone by a small town of Tirupur. These observations were made by the Northern Region Chairman of FIEO, Dr. R. K. Dhawan while inaugurating a two-day training programme on international trade at Jalandhar beginning 20th June. The programme was organized by the Northern Region Office of FIEO in association with EEPC’s Jalandhar office and JDGFT Ludhiana.
Dr. Dhawan said that Tirupur had replaced Ludhiana as the ‘knitwear hub of the country’ and its exports were almost equivalent in value terms to the total exports made from the state of Punjab. He, however, emphasized that Punjab was known for fullness, plenty, skillfulness, entrepreneurship, white revolution and green revolution and the state was acting as a torchbearer for many other states.
"Punjab has an impressive record of being the first in many areas - be it highest per capita income, highest employment in organized sector, highest daily factory employment per 1000 population, highest contributor of many agricultural commodities in the country’s pool, highest yield per hectare of land, highest number of small scale industries per capita, or highest number of banks per capita," said Dr. Dhawan.
According to Dr. Dhawan, Punjab today has got the country’s best infrastructure in terms of network of national and state highways, communication system, or the presence of ICDs, container freight stations and industrial parks near all major industrial clusters. He said there is no reason why Punjab cannot be the highest contributor to India’s exports.
The need of the hour, says Dr. Dhawan, is to encourage the Punjabi entrepreneurs, both living in or out of the country, to set up export linked industries in the state. Export sector can help Punjab to tackle its problem of un-employment and bolster its rate of economic growth, he said.
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Meanwhile, Dr. Dhawan warned that trading across borders was full of uncertainties and said this training programme has been organized precisely to advise the exporters on how to leverage the foreign trade policy, free trade agreements, available credit risk covers etc. for trading successfully in international markets. The training programme covered topics like forex management |
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A view of the participants |
strategies in the present day scenario, warehousing and supply chain challenges, container and containerisation of export cargo, cross-cultural management competency, empowering SMEs through credit rating, emerging issues in international marketing etc. The speakers who addressed the programme represented Department of Commerce, banks, credit rating agency, trade professionals, academicians etc. Around a hundred exporters participated in the programme.
