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MINISTRY OF COMMERCE & INDUSTRY GOVERNMENT OF INDIA CONFERENCE OF COMMERCIAL REPRESENTATIVES OF INDIA BASED IN SELECT WANA COUNTRIES- ALGERIA, EGYPT, IRAN, ISRAEL, KUWAIT, OMAN, SAUDI ARABIA, SUDAN, UAE, YEMEN. FINAL REPORT Kolkata 3.6.2003; Bangalore 4.6.2003; Chennai 5.6.2003; Mumbai 6.6.2003 and New Delhi 7.6.2003 FOREIGN TRADE (WEST ASIA-NORTH AFRICA) DIVISION DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Subject No. Page No. Preface 4 1 Introduction 5 2 Report of EOI, Abu Dhabi 13 3 Report of EOI, Algiers 18 4 Report of EOI, Cairo 21 5 Report of EOI, Khartoum 24 6 Report of EOI, Kuwait 29 7 Report of EOI, Muscat 35 8 Report of EOI, Riyadh 38 9 Report of EOI, Sana’a 44 10 Report of EOI, Tehran 47 11 Report of EOI, Tel Aviv 49 12 Report from FIEO 52 13 Report from CII 71 14 Report from FICCI 73 15 Conclusion and Recommendations 74 APPENDICES 1 Note on Trade between India and WANA countries 81 2 Trade Statistics with WANA countries 84 3 Background material provided by the CRs 85 3 Preface The Commercial Representatives (CRs) posted in various Indian Missions abroad have a vital role in the promotion of trade and economic cooperation with the country where they are posted. They act as facilitators in furthering the development of trade, investment, joint ventures, technical and financial collaboration contacts between India and their ‘post’ countries. It is therefore necessary that the CRs and our industrialists, exporters and businessmen have frequent interaction with each other. With a view to facilitate such direct contacts between the CRs and the business community in India, the Department of Commerce has taken steps to organise Conferences of CRs at important cities in the country, in association with trade bodies. Accordingly, one-day Conferences of CRs from select 10 countries in the West Asia -North Africa (WANA) region were held in Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and New Delhi from 3-7 June 2003. The Conference provided the CRs an opportunity to present to our businessmen details about the economic conditions, customs regulations, banking facilities and business opportunities in the respective countries where they are stationed. It also helped them in understanding the concerns, expectations, needs and difficulties of our businessmen. Our feedback is that the businessmen who participated in the meetings with CRs felt that it was an enriching experience. I have great pleasure in presenting this report on the Conference. The report of the CRs’ Conference includes, inter alia, individual accounts of the proceedings in the five sessions by the CRs and the trade bodies who coordinated the events and an introduction, conclusion & recommendations drawn up by the WANA Division of the Dept. of Commerce. In certain cases, the reports of the CRs’ and the Industry bodies have been edited, for brevity. I am confident that the experience gained by the CRs during the conference and the follow up action by all concerned would contribute immensely in the further expansion of India’s trade and economic cooperation with the WANA region. I take this opportunity to place on record my sense of appreciation to the CRs who participated in the Conference, the organisers of the five meetings and the officers of the WANA Division, who worked tirelessly to make the Conference a successful and worthwhile exercise. (M.V.P.C. SASTRY) JOINT SECRETARY 4 Chapter 1 Introduction 1. The Department of Commerce decided in November 2002 to organise meetings of Commercial Representatives (CRs) of India stationed in various countries on an annual basis, in Delhi and other cities in India to facilitate effective interaction between them on the one hand and the apex trade bodies, business communities, State Governments, agencies of Government of India, financial institutions like RBI, Exim Bank, ECGC, Export Promotion Councils, etc on the other. The meetings were intended to facilitate identification of problems faced by exporters, formulate suitable trade promotion measures by the Department and to re-orient the CRs’ approach for effectively marketing Indian products in the countries where they are posted. 2. The salient features of the guidelines formulated by the Department in this connection were as follows: l The CRs would be invited to India for a period of 5 working days; l They would visit at least three important cities with a view to have region-specific trade promotion seminars, which would be organised by the apex business chambers, co-hosting the seminars/meetings; l The Department of Commerce would bear the expenditure on airfare. Other expenses for organising the seminars, logistics and other arrangements would be met by the business chambers co-hosting the event; l All participants in the seminars would be charged participation fee, with a view to meet the expenditure on organising the meetings/seminars; the fee for the seminars would be decided by apex business chambers organising the events in consultation with the concerned Division in the Ministry l The Export Promotion Councils/ Commodity Boards/ ITPO would be closely associated with the meetings/seminars EFFORTS MADE BY WANA DIVISION 3. At a preliminary Meeting held by the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) Division with the representatives of the Industry/Business Associations, it was decided that only selected Missions would be invited depending on trade flows, potential for increasing trade, strategic importance, etc. The Ministry of External Affairs’ Economic Division, WANA Division, Gulf Division and PAI Division were fully associated with the arrangements. Based on the inputs 5 received, it was decided that the Commercial Representatives (CRs) of India based in Abu Dhabi (UAE), Algiers (Algeria), Cairo (Egypt), Khartoum (Sudan), Kuwait, Muscat (Oman), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Sana’a (Yemen), Tehran (Iran) and Tel Aviv (Israel) would be invited. The dates of the Conference were fixed from 3-7 June 2003. It was also decided that the Industry/ Business Associations—the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Federation of Indian Exporters Organisations (FIEO) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)—would be associated and the Meetings held as per the schedule given below: a. Meeting in Kolkata to be organised by CII. 3. 6. ’03 b. Meeting in Bangalore to be organised by FIEO. 4. 6. ’03 c. Meeting in Chennai to be organised by CII. 5. 6. ’03 d. Meeting in Mumbai to be organised by FICCI. 6. 6. ’03 e. Meeting in New Delhi and winding up Session to be organised by FIEO. 7. 6. ’03 REPORT OF THE CONFERNCE 4. During the Meetings, the CRs had effective and fruitful interactions with members of trade and business Associations, State Government officials, ECGC, Exim Bank, Export Promotion Councils etc. The Conference also facilitated one to one dialogues to some extent between the CRs and members of the business and trade community in the country, which helped identify strategies to increase exports to the WANA Region. 5. The plan of this Conference Report is as follows. After a brief report on the Meetings held in different locations in this Chapter, we present impressions by each CR in the following 10 Chapters (Chapters 2-11). This is followed by the Reports of each Industry/ Business Association –i.e., CII, FICCI and FIEO— in the following three Chapters (Chapter 12-14). A final chapter, Chapter 15, written by this Division tries to draw some conclusions and recommendations. The aim of the report is to present a general record of the proceedings in order to identify the essence of the main issues in bilateral trade between India and the WANA region, the ways in which problems of co-ordination can be tackled and the potential for co-operation enhanced and finally, how administrative steps taken in organising such meetings can be further improved. The Document thus does not aim to be a verbatim record of the proceedings but gives a broad flavour of the results of an Initiative taken perhaps for the first time by the Department. 6. Prior to the conference the CRs were asked to send detailed notes on existing bilateral trade, the potential for increasing such trade, the procedures for recognition/registration of Indian exporters, the problems in existing trade and market surveys for improving exports. 6 Most CRs sent extremely detailed and Comprehensive Reports on these issues; some came prepared with CDs and Reports covering these issues. These were circulated before the Meetings to the Industry/ Business Associations who ably summarised and distributed the same to the participants during the Meeting. This facilitated the Presentations made by the CRs at the Meetings. We have not brought out the these Notes in detail in this Document in full as obviously it would make this Report unmanageably long; however, to give a flavour of what was presented we have tried to present a summary of the presentations in the appendix. We crave the indulgence of the CRs if we have missed any of the issues raised by them; however, we hope that it is understood that the purpose of this document is not to repeat their presentations. We have also prepared a broad note in India-WANA bilateral trade, which we have kept in the Appendix. We now present a brief report of the Meetings. (a) Brief record of the proceedings in the meeting held in Kolkata 7. The meeting at Kolkata organized by CII as part of an ‘Export Summit’ was attended by nearly 150 exporters. Shri Nirupam Sen, Hon’ble Minister in charge Commerce and Industries, Government of West Bengal inaugurated the summit. The second session pertained to the support framework during which ECGC made a presentation. M/s Dunn and Bradstreet, a UK-based company providing information on risk management and credit assessment, made a presentation.