New Delhi: Presiding over the fourth meeting of board of trade, commerce minister Kamal Nath highlighted the need for Indian exporters to look at Africa, the Caribbean countries, CIS including the Russian Federation and some of the East Asian countries that are witnessing an economic surge.

He said that if Indian exporters did not move in somebody else would and urged exporters to make all out efforts to penetrate non-traditional markets.

Nath promised them that trade facilitation measures would receive the highest priority to reduce transaction costs in order to enhance their global competitiveness and said "procedural irritants facing exporters would be removed."

In the discussions, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) had asked for the removal of issues that cause constant uncertainty among exporters like frequent changes in duty neutralisation schemes. The FIEO had demanded that all existing schemes in the current five-year foreign trade policy should be allowed to run their course.

On agri-exports too the exporters wanted that policy should be stable as frequent changes hurt.