The commerce ministry on Thursday held consultations with exporters to address disruptions in shipping, port operations and packaging arising from the ongoing West Asia crisis, PTI reported.Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal chaired two meetings attended by Shipping Secretary Vijay Kumar, export promotion councils (EPCs), commodity boards, shipping lines, ports and exporters.Officials said the discussions focused on operational challenges at ports and in shipping logistics amid disruptions caused by the US-Israel conflict with Iran, which has impacted vessel movement in international waters, particularly in West Asia.EPCs were asked to share specific issues faced at ports so that they can be taken up for resolution.A separate meeting reviewed packaging-related challenges, with industry highlighting a sharp rise in raw material costs due to higher petrochemical prices, leading to a nearly 50% increase in packaging material costs in recent weeks.Exporters also discussed ways to sustain food exports in the current global supply environment, address shortages of packing materials and resolve trade-related bottlenecks arising from the crisis.Industry players suggested that waivers granted by ports and other stakeholders should be passed on transparently as upfront benefits, instead of being refunded later.They also urged the government to expand the Rs 497-crore RELIEF (Resilience & Logistics Intervention for Export Facilitation) scheme of ECGC to cover additional countries such as Egypt, where shipping lines have imposed war surcharges.The government had launched the RELIEF scheme last month to support exporters facing disruptions due to the West Asia conflict.Exporters further proposed setting up bunker facilities at Paradeep and Vizag ports, and simplifying procedures for reimport of containers offloaded at foreign ports, citing difficulties with existing customs processes.
