West Asia Crisis: Government to Address Shipping, Port, Packaging Issues with Exporters

Commerce Ministry Holds Meetings with Exporters to Address West Asia Crisis

The Indian commerce ministry convened meetings with exporters on Thursday to discuss the challenges faced by the industry due to the ongoing West Asia crisis. The meetings, chaired by Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal, aimed to address issues related to packaging, shipping, and port operations.

The discussions were attended by representatives of export promotion councils, commodity boards, Shipping Secretary Vijay Kumar, shipping lines, and ports. The Export Promotion Councils (EPCs) were requested to share specific issues or challenges being faced at ports, so that they may be taken up effectively during the discussion.

The joint attack launched by the US and Israel on Iran has led to severe disruptions in the movement of ships in international waters, particularly to West Asian nations. The disruptions have resulted in a 50 per cent hike in the prices of packaging materials in the past few weeks, due to rising prices of petrochemicals.

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The meetings deliberated on key packaging challenges faced by the industry arising from the evolving situation in West Asia and to identify operational responses. Issues that figured in the meeting included measures to enhance food exports in the current global supply scenario, strategies to address shortages of packing materials across sectors, and key trade issues arising from the Middle East crisis, along with suggested remedial measures.

Exporters suggested that the waiver granted by ports and other stakeholders should be passed transparently to the trade, and it should be an upfront benefit by all agencies rather than first charging and then refunding. They also urged that the Rs 497-crore RELIEF scheme of ECGC should cover other countries like Egypt, for which shipping lines have announced war surcharge.

The government had launched the RELIEF (Resilience & Logistics Intervention for Export Facilitation) scheme last month to help exporters tide over the disruptions due to the West Asia conflict. The exporters also suggested that the bunker facility may be provided at Paradeep and Vizag ports, and the easy 'back to town' facilities should be extended to containers offloaded at foreign ports as customs is asking to follow a cumbersome process of reimport.

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