By Our Staff Reporter
New Delhi, 13 Sep: State Cabinet Minister Ganesh Joshi today participated in a meeting of the Board of Trade in New Delhi, held under the chairmanship of Union Industries and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal. On this occasion, Joshi presented a replica of the Badrinath Temple to Union Minister Piyush Goyal and folk art of Uttarakhand.
The Secretary, Industries, NITI Aayog officials and senior officials of RBI were present at the meeting.
Various initiatives of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Board of Trade constituted by the Government of India were discussed at the meeting. It was agreed to identify strong areas of cooperation for enhancing the export competitiveness of the State Governments. Addressing the meeting, Joshi said that the initiative taken under the leadership of the Prime Minister in the last two years to make all the states active participants in the field of domestic manufacturing is unprecedented. A new energy has begun flowing towards making the districts of the states manufacturing and export hubs.
Joshi briefed the meeting about the activities undertaken in Uttarakhand towards promotion of manufacturing and exports. He said that in all the 13 districts of the state, a ‘One District Two Product’ scheme has been promulgated by the state with the help Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under which two products have been selected from each district of the state. He claimed that there is immense potential for export from the state of Uttarakhand and that a total of Rs 46,444 crore goods and services have been exported by the state’s exporters to various countries in the past three years. The major sectors that contributed to exports from Uttarakhand were pharmaceuticals, engineering (including automobiles), plastics, agriculture and allied sectors.
Joshi requested that, along with the Regional Office of DGFT at Dehradun, an Export Promotion Cell also be set up in which the officers of FIEO, would be present. There is a lack of technical knowledge of the export related procedure at the district level among the producers and the officials concerned, and in view of this, export awareness seminars ought to be organised by DGFT in all the 13 districts of the state and technical information related to exports disseminated in the districts.
Joshi said that the state government has been demanding for a long time the upgradation of the Dehradun airport as an international airport. There is a constant movement of people of the state to the Gulf countries. Starting a direct flight service from Dehradun to Singapore and United Arab Emirates would definitely increase the tourism and boost the exports of the state. He said that there is potential to boost floriculture and flower exports as well as export of mushrooms in the state if international cargo facilities are set up in the state.
