Exim policy to focus on CIS

As part of efforts to boost exports to the Commonwealth of Independent States, the government is likely to unveil a Focus-CIS programme in the forthcoming Exim Policy.

The commerce ministry is working on the draft of the programme, which will focus on seven CIS countries- Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrghyzstan, Kazakhistan and Azerbaijan.

Official sources said the commerce ministry would also set aside a small corpus for the programme, which would be used in the first year for undertaking market studies and generating awareness programmes.

The commerce ministry has in the past unveiled the Focus-LAC programme, which has helped increase India's exports to Latin American countries.

Government had last year announced the Focus-Africa initiative, a programme to enhance trade with the Sub-Saharan African region. Sources said the Focus-CIS programme would be structured on similar lines as the earlier two initiatives.

As per the latest disaggregated data compiled by the Director General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, India's principal commodity exports to the CIS and Baltic states during April-October 2002 was valued at $544.85 million, while the imports were valued at $457.97 million during the same period.