NEW DELHI: The global economic downturn notwithstanding, exports from India’s special economic zones (SEZs) are continuing to show robust growth.
Units in SEZs are expected to post a 40% increase in exports to Rs 90,000 crore this fiscal, commerce secretary G K Pillai has said. Exports from SEZs in the next fiscal is likely to go up by more than half to Rs 1,45,000 crore in 2009-10, he added.
The global slowdown has, however, forced about 100 odd
SEZ developers from across sectors with formal approval from the government to put on hold their investment plans for about a year till things improve. "The new SEZs, where project implementation has not yet started or just begun, are wanting to wait for a while to be first sure of their anchor investors. They want to wait for about six-twelve months. Projects which are more than two-thirds complete would, however, start operations soon," Mr Pillai told ET.
The commerce department, which is over-all incharge of SEZs, expects about 120 SEZs to be operational by December-end as opposed to the present 87.
India's overall export growth is expected to be lower than 10% this year at about $170 billion compared to $162 billion in 2007-08.
Source : The Economic Times