The Union Government has reiterated its stand on TRIPS & Public Health and said that there should be no dilution of the Doha mandate in TRIPS & Public Health in terms of access to medicines by way of coverage, definition of disease etc. According to Arun Shourie, Union Minister for Commerce & Industry India, China, Brazil and the African group are completely together on this issue. He indicated that India's concerns on Implementation Issues and Special & Differential (S&D) treatment were well reflected in the reports prepared by the chairmen of various committees which had been set up to go into the issues following the Sydney mini-ministerial.

During a recent interactive session with the representatives of Indian industry, the Minister indicated that the government has taken initiatives to ensure hassle-free environment for exports. He informed that the Customs would allow export & import consignments to go through on the basis of self-assessment from March 31, 2003 under the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system.

Attending the meeting of the Board of Trade, the minister also had a useful exchange of views with trade and industry in the run up to the forthcoming Exim Policy and assured that various suggestions received would be given due consideration in formulating the Policy. st, M.K. Zutshi, Chairman of the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC), Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State for Commerce & Industry, Dipak Chatterjee, Commerce Secretary, S. B. Mohapatra, Secretary (Textiles) and Lalit Mansingh, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) were present on the occasion.

Speaking on the occasion, A. C. Muthaiah, President, FICCI, expressed confidence that the export target of US $ 80 billion by 2007 could be achieved provided certain critical measures were taken for accelerating exports. This, he said, could be achieved by focussing on agri exports, strengthening the manufacturing industry, providing world-class infrastructure in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and thrust on services. He advocated the Look East Policy through free-trade agreement with the ASEAN as well as greater cooperation with APEC and aggressive pursuit of national interest in the WTO.

He also said that the US proposals for complete elimination of tariffs and the zero-for-zero tariff formula propagated by the developed countries were unacceptable "as we do not have a level playing field".

Ashok Soota, President, CII, flagged issues relating to export growth, market access, export credit and regional issues. Pointing out that achieving one per cent share of world trade by 2007 would require US $ 7 to 8 billion exports annually, for the next five years, he suggested that target markets should be identified and market and product-wise action plans should be drawn up. He also expressed concern over rising protectionism in the developed countries targeting the IT sector, especially in the US and the EU. While assuring the members that the government was fully alive to such issues, the Minister underlined the need for government and industry to work together on such issues. He also indicated that our concerns over the recent New Jersey Bill preventing contracts from being outsourced to India had been conveyed to the US authorities.

D.S. Brar, Chairman, Ranbaxy India Ltd., expressed concern over the high cost of export credit which eroded the competitiveness of Indian exports and suggested that policies announced by RBI regarding interest rate on export credit should be implemented by all banks. They emphasised the need to continue with duty-neutralisation schemes which were only refund of duties paid and not an incentive. Brar said that credit issues and input costs should be tackled on a war-footing. "Otherwise, with a strong rupee, imports will become cheaper and exports will become expensive". A suggestion made by both CII and Brar was that foreign trade data should reflect services and invisible exports such as IT/software, along with physical exports. Presently, the data contains only merchandise exports and excludes export of services which is handled by RBI.

Rafeeque Ahmed, President, FIEO, sought transparency in fixing drawback rates and urged the government to restore income-tax exemption under Section 80 HHC as a measure to augment manufacturing capacity to be able to compete with countries like China.