The Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), in a fresh clarification on the role of Export Promotion Councils, has reiterated that the exporters can choose the Council of their choice to become members, but insisted upon giving priority to the Council that suits the member's main line of business, ie. Pharmexcil in case of pharmaceutical sector.

It is the persistent attempts of Chemexcil (Basic Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals & Cosmetics Export Promotion Council) to get a clarification from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) with regard to the Council's role in representing drugs and pharmaceutical segment after the formation of Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil), which resulted in this fresh note early this week.

The Policy Circular (No. 02/2004-2009 Dated on 6 October, 2004), issued to all Licensing Authorities and Commissioners of Customs, had been in the offing for sometime, but got delayed due to the hectic lobbying carried out by various interest groups.

Pharmabiz had recently hinted about a possible DGFT explanation, that could save Chemexcil from the shock it had to suffer after finding that the commerce ministry had, through the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-'07, officially handed over the entire responsibility to promote export of drugs and pharmaceuticals to Pharmexcil.

The DGFT circular draws attention to Para 3.12 of the Handbook of Procedures (Vol 1) indicating the allocation of products, etc. for various Export Promotion Councils and states that it gives a clarification on the issuance of Registration Cum Membership Certificate (RCMC) by Export Promotion Councils. It states, "An exporter desiring to obtain RCMC shall apply to the Export Promotion Council that relates to his main line of business as per Appendix 27 of the Handbook of Procedures (Vol 1)" and goes on to say that " however, the exporter has the option to take the membership of any other Export Promotion Council in addition".

It may be recalled that Pharmabiz had earlier quoted commerce ministry officials on their views that the issue of overlapping of responsibilities is not just the case of Pharmexcil or Chemexcil, but is common with several other Councils like Engineering Export Promotion Council, Chemicals and Allied Products Export Promotion Council, Leather Export Promotion Council, Sports Goods Export Promotion Council, Plastic Export Promotion Council etc. They had also pointed out that there are 8 different export promotion councils for the textile sector in the country.