Govt expects the exports to improve

"The government expects the position to improve in the coming months," he said in Rajya Sabha during the Question Hour.Sharma said the country's merchandise exports which had declined by 38.9 per cent in May 2009 are showing signs of improvements and the downturn has been arrested to a single digit in October this year.

"The progressive reduction in the decline indicates that while the impact of global recession is still continuing on our exports, the steps taken by the government and RBI are contributing to arrest the steep decline in exports.The government expects the position to improve further in the coming months," he said.

Sharma said he expects exports to grow by 15 per cent in the next fiscal despite the global recession.He further said that sectors like handicraft, handloom and gems and jewellery sectors had suffered badly due to recession and had witnessed job crunch between October 2008 and March 2009.

Answering a supplementary on SEZs, Sharma said though impact of recession on SEZ cannot be ruled out, exports from SEZs during the first two quarters of the current fiscal amount to  Rs 89,750 crore against Rs 48,838 crore during the corresponding period of 2008-09, marking an 84 per cent rise.

He informed the House that till date 570 SEZs have been approved by the Centre in consonance with state governments.The minister also said that as per the rules, SEZ units are required to submit annual performance reports and developers are required to submit quarterly reports on their performance. These are scrutinised by the development commissioners of the concerned SEZs.