Since its inception in 1958, the Sports Goods Export Promotion Council (SGEPC) has been relentlessly promoting exports of sports goods and toys from India. In an exclusive interaction with The Dollar Business, Raghunath Singh Rana, Chairman of SGEPC, talks about the Council’s journey so far, and explains challenges faced by the Indian sports goods exporters.
TDB: This is Sports Goods Export Promotion Council’s (SGEPC) 58th fiscal year. How has the journey been so far? How successful has the Council been in achieving its objective to promote exports of sports goods and toys from the country?
Raghunath Singh Rana (RSR): SGEPC was founded in 1958 and the journey so far has been really good and a successful one! The Council’s main role is to help the sports goods and toys industry find new markets, products, technologies and raw materials, by arranging members’ participation in overseas exhibitions, fairs, buyer-seller meets, as well as conduct market surveys under various government schemes, including MDA (Market Development Assistance) and MAI (Market Access Initiative) schemes.
Apart from these, the Council has been helping the industry and its members by organising various seminars and events to create awareness about export schemes, testing of products (as per export standards), facilitating patenting of products, designs, etc., which have helped our exporters in a big way. The Council has also played a big role as a single platform for exporters to find solutions to their many problems.
TDB: What challenges do Indian sports goods exporters face while competing with their global counterparts?
RSR: Lack of advanced technology in manufacturing and packaging of a product is the most crucial challenge. Other hassles the industry faces are non-availability of proper raw materials and restrictions on free movement of indigenous raw materials from one state to another, such as rubber from Kerala, Kashmir willow wood from Jammu & Kashmir, cane from Assam, etc.
This story is from the November 2016 edition of The Dollar Business.
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This story is from the November 2016 edition of The Dollar Business.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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