India will be benefitted in this kind of euro zone crisis, because India will take some chunk of export which was going to Europe, said Bhupender Kumar Sethi, Sr Vice President – Exports, Finolex Cables Ltd, in an interview with Sandeep Sharma on the side lines of EEPC Awards 2008-09 held at Taj President, Mumbai recently. Edited excerpts.

Due to the ongoing euro zone crisis, what kind of impact do you see on your exports?
We have very little exposure so far our exports are concerned in Europe; primarily it is in UK and France. And we have seen in the last few months, it has impacted some of the exports in UK and France. However we'll be able to make up in Middle East and Africa which are the upcoming markets. But as such we are also expecting as India is expected to reach a very decent figure in exports of engineering products. So some of the countries which were earlier not importing from India we expect
countries like Germany and countries like Italy, Italy was one of our competitor countries in
engineering exports. With this crisis, some of the business will come to India. At the end i would like to summarize, India will be benefitted in this kind of euro crisis, because India will take some chunk of export which was going to Europe, it will be translated from Europe to India. Basically it is an opportunity to focus on some more countries where the crisis is. They will not be able to compete with the Indian prices especially with the current exchange rates.

As you said some of the markets will shift to India, what about the quality aspects of our goods?
So far Indian engineering exports is concerned, India is competitive in terms of quality in compare to European products. It is only the opportunity, the access, there have been some barriers for Indian products, but those are getting removed with the financial crisis in Europe and these were the non-tariff barriers. So far India has been exporting to North America and Europe. This shows that quality is not an issue.

There may be some exporters who must be having exposure to the countries in the euro zone which are not as strong as France or Germany is concerned. What’s your advice or recommendation to such exporters, what they should do to tide over this crisis?
We expect that with this euro crisis, India should be benefitted. One is due to the currency rates, and second is because India is going to be more competitive as rupee has got much more purchasing power in terms of EBC purchasing power parity.

What kind of initiatives do you expect from organization like EEPC to boost exports or to recommend some timely action for the exporters who may face such crisis?
EEPC has been pro-active in providing all the information, organizing buyer-seller meets, creating opportunity for exhibitions, participating in exhibitions overseas and also creating opportunities in India by inviting the buyers to our country. They are also pro-active in taking initiative with the government regulatory like RBI and also the export policy. Their contribution is very significant.

On a scale of 10, how much would you give to EEPC?
I would like to give 8.

So, what is lagging?
No. We cannot say lagging, in fact as you see India is a vast country and there are many other problems like infrastructure, regulations, policies and so on. So if you would ask me, 8 is the highest rating.

What's your wish list from the next budget?
India should come strongly with rupee export. How long we'll be depending on Euro and US dollars, which may not be really the currencies of the future. As you can see the Euro crisis, the US crisis, so you don’t know how long it is going to affect us. So we are not in the hands of our own country. But we are in the hands of unseen and unforeseen, you know crisis like situation for which we have no control.

Do you mean to say that the time of rupee had come?
I think at least we should make a beginning with the SAARC Countries.