Mysuru’s export potential highlighted at awareness workshop

An awareness workshop on export promotion and facilitation was held in the city on Tuesday with the Joint Director and Head of Karnataka chapter of Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Soma Chaudhury highlighting the export potential of Mysuru.

The workshop was organised jointly by FIEO and the District Industries Centre (DIC) with the support of the Mysore Chamber of Commerce and Industries (MCCI) under the Raising and Accelarating MSME Performance (RAMP) scheme, a Central government programme supported by the World Bank.

In her address, Ms. Chaudhury said the RAMP scheme sought to raise and accelerate MSME’s performance by supporting new and potential exporters and extending to them mentorship, training and guidance on foreign trade policy to enter the global markets.

The programme also sought to provide the MSMEs guidance on finding buyers/importers.

Referring to the high number of products with the Geographical Indication (GI) tag in Mysuru, Ms. Chaudhury said Mysuru had the highest number of GI products that had export potential.

Meanwhile, Joint Director of DIC T. Dinesh said Mysuru was second only to Bengluru in the State for exports. Mysuru was next only to Bengaluru in Information Technology (IT) exports, he said while pointing out that Mysuru’s exports hovered around ₹6,400 to ₹6,700 crore during the last few years with the district’s basic export strength coming from exports and textiles among others.

However, he emphasised the need for atleast 10% to 15% increase in exports year on year.

Karnataka stood fifth in the country in terms of exports, Mr. Dinesh said, adding that all the districts of the state were contributing to Karnataka’s export.

Earlier, the country was considered to be a unit for exports. Later, a State was regarded as a unit. Now, each district is considered as a hub and the government has already started a programme in this direction.

Mr. Dinesh said one need not imagine that one requires a ‘big container’ of merchandise to enter into export business. There are opportunities to export small quantities through ‘India Post’ and ‘courier services’ also.

Also, he said exports need not be restricted to just industrial produce. Even produce from the Departments of Horticulture, Agriculture, Fisheries, Veterinary Science can be value added and exported, he added.

Meanwhile, president of KCCI K.B. Lingaraju urged the participants to make use of the workshop and start their export ventures.

The workshop also featured technical sessions by Deputy Director of FIEO, Bengaluru, Danisha Minu, manager of Export Credit Guarantee Corporation, Bengaluru, Gaurav Tiwari and secretary of Bangalore Customs House Agents’ Association Girish Narayan.

Vice-president, Exports, N. Ranga Rao and Sons, E.Y.A. Selvakumar, Joint Dierctor of Agriculture, Mysuru, K.H. Ravi and Deputy Director of DIC, Mysuru, Syed Nazeer Ahmed were present on the occasion.