The Commerce Ministry is considering simplifying export procedures “in a significant manner” to boost export—now hit by the appreciating rupee, the Commerce Secretary G K Pillai said here on Wednesday.

“Our trade policy is complicated. This discourages our exporters. The focus should shift from getting a number of approvals from various government agencies to self-certification. The majority should not suffer for misdeeds of a handful of unscrupulous exporters,” he said while interacting with trade and industry experts on trade policy issues organised by the CII here.

“The need of the hour is to cut the number of export incentives. We should have only meaningful incentives to promote the competitiveness of our exporters,” Mr Pillai added. On the issue whether the government could meet the export target of $160 billion for 2007-08, he said, “it seems the country will miss the target by $10 billion because of slow growth in some sectors.” He indicated that the Krishnamurthy Committee would submit its recommendations on January 31 to arrest the slowdown in exports from labour-intensive sectors. The committee is expected to suggest measures to deal with the impact of appreciating rupee on exports.

Deliberating on measures to boost export earnings, he underlined the importance technology to make exports value added.

Talking about trade negotiations with other countries Mr Pillai said negotiations for Free Trade Area (FTA) between India and ASEAN were on track. He added that the Electronic Data Interface (EDI) would be operational by the end of this year.