Center plans to set up a National Cooperative Export society

The government is planning to set up a “National Cooperative Export Society” to help boost India’s exports, with a proposal on it having been circulated by the ministry of cooperation among central ministries and departments for consultation, said two people with knowledge of the development.

This Society will be geared toward promoting exports and is proposed to be set up under the Multi State Cooperative Societies Act 2002. This comes in the backdrop of India’s exports contracting 16.65% to $29.78 billion in October 2022 from a year ago.

India is home to about 800,000 industrial units that are run by producers in rural sectors, catering mostly to the domestic sector. In spite of the export potential, much of the industry is unorganized. The newly formed ministry of cooperation says there is no comprehensive database on cooperatives available with it but the process of creating a national database on cooperatives has started.

In June Union minister for cooperation Amit Shah informed the Lok Sabha that the government is working on a national policy for cooperatives, based on consultations on reforming the sector.

In a push to cooperatives, the government had also approved expanding the mandate of the Government e Marketplace-Special Purpose Vehicle (GeM-SPV) to allow procurement by cooperatives. Prior to this, the platform was open for procurement by government buyers, central and state ministries, departments and public sector enterprises.

Queries emailed to a spokesperson for the ministry of cooperation on 4 December remained unanswered. The government on Thursday introduced the Multi-State Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022 to strengthen governance, transparency and accountability in cooperative societies and reform their electoral process. It also seeks to improve monitoring and ease of doing business for these entities.

Indian exporters welcomed the move. “There are thousands of cooperatives in the country and if we are able to bring them under a single umbrella body, it will definitely help in attracting their focus towards exports. Most of the cooperative bodies are looking at the domestic market. Beyond a point the domestic market gets saturated. So as a long-term strategy we should be open to the global market. This will help in the internationalisation of Indian cooperatives,” said Federation of Indian Export Organizations director general Ajay Sahai.

A CareEdge report on Thursday said that cotton yarn exports declined by 59% in H1FY23 to 289,000 tonnes and are expected to record a de-growth of 28-30% in FY23 due to high cotton prices and weakening export demand. India produces around 3.5 million tonnes of cotton yarn per annum, 60-65% of which is consumed domestically, and the rest exported.

Source : Mint Dec 09th 2022 by Ravi Dutta Mishra and Utpal Bhaskar