Decline in export credit a concern: Piyush Goyal

New Delhi: Expressing concern over decline in export credit, particularly to MSME players, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal Friday said steps will be taken to ensure timely availability of funds to exporters.

"Timely and efficient availability of export credit is critical for any trade activity and is one of the key drivers that boosts growth of export," he said.

He was speaking at a meeting called to discuss issues related to export credit.

Goyal said in the last few years the share of export credit has come down and this is a "cause of concern", especially for the MSME sector that suffers due to demand of collateral from lending institutions.

"Today's meeting with stake holders has been called to address this significant challenge and to redress the situation based on the inputs given by participating organisations and institutions," he added.

Goyal said the time has come to move away from subsidies and provide easy availability of cheaper credit to exporters.

To ease the burden on exporters and to make exports competitive and at par with global best practices, he said there is a need to first develop a framework with a stable policy that is an internationally acceptable, consistent and robust and then look for solutions within that framework.

"Greater transparency has to be brought into the work being done by government organisations, export promotion councils and financial institutions," the minister added.

He said transparency will ensure that the genuine competitive advantages of exports are harnessed.

Goyal hoped that the result of the meeting will lead to export credit tripling in the next five years and allow India to be at par with the rest of the world where credit is cheaper and interest rates are lower.

Exporters have time and again raised issues related to credit as it impacts outbound shipments.

The meeting was attended by representatives of Ministry of Finance, RBI, State Bank of India, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Barclays Bank, Citi India, Bank of America, EXIM Bank, ECGC, and Indian Banks' Association.

Exporters, export promotion councils and industry chambers including FICCI also participated.