Apex engineering exporters' organisation, EEPC India has approached the Reserve Bank of India and the commerce ministry with a demand that exporters be allowed conversion of their dollar earnings, based on the Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) , since the rupee is over-valued in terms of Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER).
" Our members have requested that the Indian exporters should be allowed to convert their dollars into rupees at the REER, as per the RBI indices", EEPC India executive director & secretary Bhaskar Sarkar said in a letter to commerce secretary Ms Rita Teaotia.
A similar letter has been sent to RBI governor Dr Urjit Patel.
The EEPC India letter said it has received representations from the member exporters stating " they are badly affected by the sharp appreciation of the Indian rupee. The rupee has appreciated by around 6% between January 2017 and as of today. This is making it extremely difficult to be competitive at a time when some of our major competing countries are depreciating vis-a- vis dollar. The Indian engineering exporting community has been badly affected by a range of other measures such as the RBI' Caution Listing, non-acceptance by banks of payments from OFAC countries, increasing steel prices, amongst others"
The engineering exporters said the RBI's latest measure of 'caution-listing' is also hurting them. As per the new norms, exporters would be caution-listed if their shipping bills remain open for over two years from the shipment date in the Export Data Processing and Monitoring System.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com