The pharmaceutical exporters in the country are perturbed over the omission of Russia, Ukraine and several Latin American countries from the list of Focus Market Scheme in the annual supplement to the foreign trade policy recently announced by Union Commerce Minister Kamal Nath.

The omission of Russia and Ukraine has especially irked the exporters as these two countries account for about 70 per cent of the pharma exports to CIS countries. Though the name of Russia was first figured in the list, it has disappeared from the list when the list was notified.

"It appears to be a half hearted effort from the government. Russia and Ukraine are the main export markets among the CIS countries. They both account for more than 70 per cent of the export market. But the government has ignored the demand of the exporters to include them in the focus market scheme," Pharmexcil chairman Dinesh Modi said.

He said, the Pharmexcil is seized of the issue and will soon take up the issue with the director general of Foreign Trade in the Union Commerce Ministry. There are several other Latin American countries which have been excluded from the list.

The objective of the focus market scheme was to offset the high freight cost and other disabilities to certain select international markets with a view to enhance the country's competitiveness to these countries. This scheme allows duty credit facility at 2.5 per cent of the free-on-board value of exports of all products to the notified countries.

The government had identified three focus areas of focus Africa, focus CIS and focus LAC for this scheme. Though the government has almost acted as per the expectations of the exporters in the case of focus Africa with the inclusion of 49 countries, much is to be done in the case of focus CIS and focus LAS.

The focus market scheme was introduced by the Central government in the annual supplement to the foreign trade policy, announced on April 7, 2006. One of the important conditions under the scheme was that only exports made through direct shipping lines would be eligible for benefits while exports made through transshipment are not eligible for entitlement under the scheme.

The scheme is especially good for the small players in the industry who does not have the competence and wherewithal to export their products to the developed and developing countries where the competition is cut-throat.

In the list of countries notified by the government, Latin American Countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, and 49 countries of African qualify for benefits under the Focus Market scheme. The list of African block included Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Mauritius and Zimbabwe.