Category Archives: Supplier

Elaborating the liquidity crunch being faced by exporters, S K Saraf, President, FIEO, says, “Despite the pandemic, Indian exporters have started receiving a lot of enquiries and orders from across the globe helping many sectors to show improved export performance, which is likely to get better in next few months. However, exporters, particularly from MSME sector, are facing huge liquidity challenges due to the stoppage of MEIS benefits of over Rs 10,000 crore from April 1, 2020 and IGST refund now. At this point of time when exporters are receiving new orders from new buyers and destinations, support needs to be given to help them to execute such orders.” Unfortunately, many of the exporters have expressed their inability to honour such orders, in view of liquidity challenges, due to stoppage of exports benefits and refund of GST. President, FIEO urged the Government to look into the issue as any letup in our export efforts, at this juncture, will cost us dearly while successful execution of these orders will bring additional export business from new and unexplored territories. All wings of the government should sit together, opined Mr Saraf, to resolve the technical and financial issues, helping the seamless flow of liquidity to exports sector. President, FIEO also said that banks are helping eligible exporters with the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme but due to hold up of GST refund and MEIS, the exporters are forced to seek additional loans from banks and such additional requirement is now subject to very high interest rates. Banks need to consider this pragmatically and provide a competitive interest rate to the exports sector particularly as the deposit rates have come down substantially with the …

The government has decided to cap export incentives under Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) scheme at Rs 2 crore per exporter on outbound shipments made during September-December, 2020. Welcoming the decision, Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, FIEO said, “It will help in resolving the impasses, resulting in blockage of MEIS benefits from April 1, 2020 and would provide huge relief to majority of exporters and give them stable policy environment for exports. However, the sudden imposition of a cap of Rs 2 Crore per IEC on MEIS benefit of exports made during 01.09.2020 to 31.12..2020, is going to seriously affect exporters, whose numbers may not be very large, but their contribution to exports warrant a revisit to the imposition of cap. FIEO President said that the exports which will be made during September-December, 2020 are based on the orders, which have already been negotiated much earlier factoring the existing MEIS benefit. These benefits are part of the export competitiveness and therefore the sudden change will affect the exporters’ financially as buyers are not going to revise their prices upward.” FIEO expressed its concern over the financial outlay of Rs 5,000 Crore given for exports during September-December, 2020 with the condition that if claims exceed Rs 5,000 Crore, the ceiling may further be revised downwards. This will create huge uncertainty as those eligible for cap of Rs 2 crore will not be able to factor even such benefits in their exports. A clarity is also required whether any change in the MEIS rate will be notified for those who are not affected by the cap, if the amount of Rs 5,000 Crore is exhausted. FIEO also urged the government to extend …

According to ICRA (formally known as Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency of India), the Indian port sector has witnessed sharp contraction during Q1 FY2021 due to the impact of Covid-19 pandemic and containment measures adopted by the Government. While, the Major Ports witnessed ~20 per cent decline in Q1 FY2021, the Non Major Ports declined by 24 per cent during the same period. However, in the month of July 2020, the rate of cargo decline decelerated with Major Ports witnessing Y-o-Y decline of 13% and Non Major ports witnessing sharper improvement with decline of just 4%. As per Ratings agency ICRA, the FY2021 outlook for the Port sector remains negative, although there are early signs of recovery as witnessed by trends in July, the sustainability remains to be seen. Regarding the developments, Sai Krishna, Assistant Vice President and Associate-Head, ICRA Ratings adds, “The contraction in Port cargo was driven by sharp fall in POL and coal volumes, due to decline in domestic demand and economic activity, while container segment was also impacted by subdued EXIM trade. With the easing of containment measures and improved demand for petroleum products and power, the POL and coal segment should witness recovery. However, the recovery in segments like containers may be more prolonged due to dependence on both domestic economic activity and global demand trends. ICRA reiterates its expectation that while general cargo throughput may witness ~6-8% contraction for full year 2020-21, the container segment may witness a decline of 12-15% during the same period.” The rating agency also notes that while some of the measures announced by the Ministry of Shipping (MOS), in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic to support various stakeholders, …

DP World’s subsidiary Unifeeder announced the acquisition of Transworld Feeders FZCO, Avana Logistek, including its subsidiary Avana Global FZCO, and Transworld Feeders which is the containerised Indian coastal and EXIM feeder shipping operations of Shreyas Shipping and Logistics Limited, excluding vessels and bulk operations. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals. Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO, DP World, said, “We are delighted to announce these bolt-on acquisitions which give us complete coverage in fast-growing markets between East Africa, Gulf, and the wider Indian Subcontinent. These new activities are in line with our strategy and complement our recent acquisitions of Feedertech and Perma Shipping. We now have the capability to offer superior connectivity between Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East, and East Africa, and this greater scale and comprehensive network presence will allow us to reduce inefficiencies in the supply chains to the benefit of all our customers. “Transworld Feeders and Avana are both strong and well-known brands that handle approximately 1.2mn TEU per annum and operate in fast-growing markets. Our Unifeeder ISC platform will continue to operate an asset-light, independent common-user platform, as we continue to build the Unifeeder brand, which is best known for efficient connectivity, flexibility, and reliability. Unifeeder now has full-scale capability to offer feedering and regional trade connectivity in Northern Europe, Mediterranean, Northern Africa, Middle East, Indian Subcontinent and Asia,” he adds.

Facilitating omnichannel e-commerce, Holisol has scaled up the fulfillment capabilities by adding self-serving ‘Automated Sales Centre (ASC)’, a tech-based solution that enables 24×7 touch-less buying of product. Along with this, the company has created a strong and tech-enabled network of pick-up centres, customer experience centres, rapid fulfilment centres, return/refurbishment centres, dark Stores, exchange stores, omni-channel fulfilment centres and collection centres enabling seamless omnichannel shopping experience for the end customer. “Our focus is, how to increase the accessibility of the consumption market for the customers, especially during the crisis. By enabling distributed inventory model and placing them closer to the consumption market, we aim to make our customers’ supply chain responsive and enable faster fulfilment”, states Rahul S Dogar, Managing Director, Holisol. “The biggest value addition has been to let our customer focus on sourcing and selling, leaving all else in between to us. With our tech-enabled omnichannel network we will speed up the fulfilment including instant, same day or next day fulfilment to increase the sales throughput of our customers,” he adds.

Commenting on if regionalisation of supply chain would open a big window of opportunity for India in the manufacturing and logistics, N Sivasailam, Former Special Secretary (Logistics), Ministry of Commerce & Industry first talked about the shipping ministry decision to promote Indian flag vessels. He says, “In my view, regionalisation means India’s self reliance along with the globe.” He continues, “I am pretty certain that this initiative would create facilitative environment in order to ensure a good reign of business. It may cover not only the movement of petroleum and other essential strategic but also a whole lot of India’s export in container trade. We are not trying to say that vessels should be of Indian investment or there should not be any foreign investment. However, this is also a means of attracting foreign domestic investment in India and making India an attractive place for FDI for the service sector.”

Tensions between Iran and the US increased after an American drone strike that killed top Iranian General last week. Iran is a key trading partner of India. “Escalation of tension between the US and Iran will have implications on India’s exports to the Persian Gulf nation, said, Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, FIEO. He said that due to existing trade sanctions on Iran, Iranian shipping lines are only taking Indian consignments to that country. Iran’s major exports to India are oil, fertilisers and chemicals, while it imports cereals, tea, coffee, basmati rice, spices and organic chemicals, among others. FIEO Chief is also of the view that Iran holds huge export opportunities in sectors such as agriculture, chemicals, machinery, pharmaceuticals, paper and paper products, man-made fibre and filament yarn and essential oils.

Flipkart has led a US$ 60 million investment in Shadowfax to strengthen its logistics network in the nation. “We have seen strong synergies with Shadowfax through our existing engagement with them, and their investments in tech-enabled innovations will help us significantly reduce delivery time and provide superior customer experiences across product categories. By leveraging kirana stores and the deep delivery capabilities of Shadowfax and other Flipkart-led innovations, we are building a strong foundation to make inroads into a dynamic hyperlocal consumer market,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Chief Executive Officer, Flipkart. The Series D funding round also saw the participation of Eight Roads Ventures, NGP Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Mirae Asset Naver Fund, and the World Bank-backed International Finance Corp.

Increasing demand for warehousing from both domestic and international players is driving demand for efficient and international practices of storing and moving goods. LEAP India expects the demand for pallets on lease to go up to four million during the year 2020-21 from three million deployed currently. The company is expanding its client base to 550 spread across FMCG, beverages, auto, food, e-Commerce and large logistic players. Sunu Mathew, Managing Director, LEAP India comments, “We see enough opportunity in both pallets and Foldable Large Containers (FLCs). We are all geared up to tap this huge opportunity as we are well positioned to expand our pallets base. The company has good number of veterans from logistics and other sectors managing various functions professionally.”

Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister of State for Shipping, Government of India laid the foundation stone for development of an additional Liquid Cargo Jetty at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) in Mumbai. Built at a cost of over Rs 300 crore, the project will cater to the increased demand for handling liquid cargo like edible oil, LPG, molasses and other chemicals. Mandaviya said, “The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has laid focus on port-led development. Keeping this in view, India’s ports are being developed and modernized in line with global best practices. The new terminal will increase JNPT’s present capacity of 6.5 Million Tonnes Per Annum to an additional 4.5 million tonnes per annum.”