The government’s Rs 1400 crore relief package to exporters will provide the much-needed reprieve to those who earn precious foreign exchange for the country. The exporters have welcomed the announcement of increased Duty Drawback Rates for most of the products and also appreciated the decision to reduce interest rates on pre and post shipment credit for nine specified sectors of exports and all SMEs. Though the exporters feel that the relief announced by the government was not enough to counter the near-10 per cent appreciation in the rupee and rise in interest rates, they are happy that there is at least a recognition of the problem. 
It is heartening to note that the relief package has rightly identified sectors like textiles, garments, leather, engineering products and marine products for making available finance at lower interest rates. These sectors suffered the most from rupee appreciation because the import content in their products is negligible. The sops come at a time when Indian exporters desperately needed some support from the government to reach the $160 billion export target. The competitiveness of exports is eroded and Indian exporters are losing orders to competitors like China, Thailand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, etc. The fixed exchange rate of Chinese currency, on the other hand, is creating havoc in the global market as Chinese exports are artificially cheap. Instead of providing subsidy to exporters, which is counterproductive, it is better that our exports are made more competitive by removing obstacles.
The new relief package has been introduced with good intentions. But exporters would now like to see quick action and pray that decisions just do not remain on paper. There are a variety of areas where we need an urgent and integrated approach to remove hindrances. Infrastructure areas like transport, power and ports should be de-bottlenecked for exporters to be able to deliver on time, every time. To compete globally, specially with China, South-east Asian and East European countries, our cost of production has to come down drastically. This means we must have manufacturing facilities of global sizes for achieving economies of scale.