Ceiling, Industry hopes more exports to U S

Visakhapatnam, July 17 (UNI) Seafood Exporters Association of India Vice President T Raghunath Reddy today said the increase in ceiling on credit guarantee will enable more export to the United States.

Speaking at an Exporters meet convened by Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India(ECGC) here, he said the seafood exporters had urged the ECGC to raise the ceiling on credit guarantee from 75 per cent to 90 per cent.

Mr Reddy said the opening of the ECGC office in the city in 2003 had enabled the industry to do well in the export market.

He admitted that despite imposition of anti dumping duties, Indian shrimp accounted for 30 per cent of total shrim export to the U S during last year, mainly due to credit guarantee extended by the ECGC.

He said the association would continue to accord top priority to improve its performance in the coming years by finding out customer satisfaction level in small cities.

It would also launch various value added products in connection with its golden jubilee celebrations.

Marine Products Export Development Authority Deputy Director K Venkatratnam said they could achieve a turnover of Rs 7,245 crore during the 2005-06 due to various subsidy schemes launched by the MPEDA to encourage infrastructure and research and development.

ECGC Executive Director S Prabhakaran said the ECGC was set to emerge as the only Government of India enterprise to have complete computerised facility.

As many as 31 branches out of 51 branches spread across the country would get ISO 9001:2000 certification. The ECGC was bestowed with "iaaa rating" by the Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency (IICRA) for high claim-paying ability.

Mr Prabhakaran said they were in the process of launching several value-added products for the benefit of the customers to increase the number of exporters.

The centre had recently released Rs 66 crore for setting up a national export insurance account. A total of Rs 240 crore was sanctioned for the corpus fund for the current fiscal, he added.

UNI BSR AJ 1645