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Minister
of Commerce and Industry Shri
Kamal Nath
calls for big thrust
to EPO services – gives away EEPC Export Awards
The engineering sector
has emerged as the largest contributor to India’s
total merchandise exports, even ahead of gems &
jewellery, with exports of engineering goods from
India having crossed US $ 5 billion in the first
quarter of the current financial year 2006-07,
representing an increase of 20% over last year.
This was indicated by Shri Kamal Nath, Union
Minister of Commerce & Industry, at the All India
Awards Function for Outstanding Export Performance
organised by the Engineering Export Promotion
Council (EEPC) in Chennai today.
Giving details of the
performance, Shri Rakesh Shah, Chairman, EEPC, in
his keynote address said that during the first
quarter of this fiscal (April-June 2006) US $ 5.5
billion worth of engineering items were exported
from India. At this rate, total engineering exports
would touch US $ 23 billion in 2006-07 and “this
would be the highest among all items in overall
merchandise exports from India”, Shri Shah said.
Shri Kamal Nath also
called for rapid development of Engineering Process
Outsourcing (EPO) services from India as it would
have a far-reaching impact on the Indian engineering
industry as a whole. “The spurt in engineering
outsourcing can be gauged from the fact that a
number of giant automotive and aerospace companies
such as Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Boeing
and Airbus have some of their engineering done by
Indian technology companies. In addition to that,
virtually every semi-conductor manufacturing
company, electronic goods maker and mobile handset
vendor have some work outsourced to India. The EPO
market in India has the potential to exceed US $ 40
billion by 2020, which will catapult India’s market
share in the same category to 30 percent from the
current 12 percent. To tap this EPO market all the
important stakeholders, including the Government,
academic institutions, service providers and trade
bodies will need to boost investments in
infrastructure and improve marketing efforts”, he
said.
The Minister
complimented EEPC for pioneering a study on EPO
services, which involve delegating
engineering-related work to other companies taking
advantage of low labour cost, quality talented tool
etc. which are abundantly available in India. Shri
Shah informed that the final report on EPOs would be
ready by October this year.
Shri Kamal Nath
congratulated the award winners while presenting the
EEPC annual awards to 62 companies including large,
medium and small enterprises from all over the
country. The award winners this year include
established names like Tata Motors, Tata Steel,
Ashok Leyland, Bharat Forge, Kirloskar Brother, BHEL,
IRCON, Motor Industries, Lakshmi Machine Works and
many upcoming companies.
Earlier, Shri Shah also highlighted
the problems faced by engineering exporters such as
service tax on inland haulage and terminal handling
charges, 80 HHC, Fringe Benefit Tax, advancement of
Implementation of GST etc and assured the government
of higher growth in exports of Indian engineering
items if no taxes and duties to be exported and
there is better inter-departmental coordination for
smooth implementation of the provisions of the
Foreign Trade Policy.
New Delhi,
Aug
10, 2006 |
