Task force assessing competitiveness of Indian exports

The government has set up a task force, which will look into various issues affecting the competitiveness of Indian exports and suggest remedial measures to reduce transaction costs and thereby facilitate exports.

The task force will assess the procedural bottlenecks affecting India's imports and exports, minister of state for commerce and industry Jyotiraditya M Scindia informed the Lok Sabha today.

He said the government would continue to reduce transaction costs and delays and simplify export procedures on a continuous basis, in order to facilitate international trade

The task force will submit its report within a few months, the minister said.

Spices parks
Scindia said the government has proposed to set up six `spices parks' with infrastructure facilities for cleaning, grading, processing, packing facilities etc, primarily to empower the spices farmers through value-addition and quality improvement of spices, along with backward linkage in various parts of the country, including Gujarat.

These parks are planned at Guntur (Andhra Pradesh), Sivaganga (Tamil Nadu), Puttadi and Idukki (Kerala), as also in Rajasthan, Gujarat and in Uttar Pradesh.

The spice park at Puttadi is near completion while the proposal for setting up a spices park in Gujarat has not made any headway because of difficulty in getting the required land.