Apex exporters’ body Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) on Monday said it will focus on new products and markets for diversification with a view to boost the country’s outbound shipments.

FIEO President A Sakthivel also said that the order booking position is encouraging till October, but many exporters are not in a position to take further contracts due to erosion of liquidity and uncertainties on the policy front.

“I have raised the issue of shortage of containers, frequent shutouts by the shipping lines and exorbitant freight rates, that are having a dampening effect on the exports, with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal,” he said at the organisation’s annual general meeting.

The other issues which FIEO has raised with the government include rationalisation of export policy of raw material to strike a balance between exports and domestic requirement; automatic enhancement of the existing working capital requirement by 20-25 per cent by banks; extension of factoring facilities with institutions like ECGC; and removal of transport and logistics problems by regulating movement of empty containers from India.

“The federation has also highlighted the skyrocketed increase in freight rates between 300 per cent to 350 per cent and to some destinations like South America and West Africa, it is over 500 per cent. It was suggested that freight subsidy may be given till freight charges normalize,” he said.

He added that large ships may be encouraged to call on some Indian ports so that the backlog is reduced; and the Shipping Corporation of India may be asked to take a few ships on lease for sailing to our major exports/imports destinations.

Speaking at the meeting, FIEO Vice Chairman Khalid Khan said that the continuous growth in exports since March will help in achieving the target of USD 400 billion for this fiscal.

“We are confident that we can revive our export growth and meet the export target of USD 400 billion by this fiscal and USD 1,000 billion by 2027 set by the government. This will mean registering annual export growth of above 25 per cent for the next five years, which is challenging but achievable,” Khan said.