Indian plastics industry has set the target of crossing $1 billion export for the year 2003-04, chairman of plastics export promotion council V Ramakrishnan (Plexconcil) said in Kolkata.

"We are on our way to achieve the target of $1 billion of export during the current year against $ 900 million recorded in 2002-03," he added.

The country had recorded growth of 14 per cent in last fiscal over previous year.

"We will focus on African, CIS and Latin American countries for increasing exports and we are very confident of increasing our export to these areas," Ramakrishnan pointed out while speaking at a seminar on 'Export Prospects $ Impact of Exim Policy on Plastic'.

The council was organising road shows and programmes in a number of foreign countries to identify export potential there, he added.

Ramakrishnan said the western region used to be in the forefront of plastics exports, but in recent times the eastern region too had increased its presence.

R C Lohia, eastern region chairman of Plexconcil said export of plastics from the eastern region increased to Rs 514 crore in 2001-02 from Rs 178 crore in 2000-01. However, it recorded negative growth in 2002-03 to Rs 456 crore (provisional).

The major items exported from this region are laminates, plastic moulded and extruded goods, plastic raw material, writing instrument and human hair, Lohia informed.

Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) is the largest exporter of plastic products and raw material from east. It has set a March, 2004 target of exporting upto 4000 mt of value added products per month.

Sabyasachi Sen, principal secretary (commerce and industry) of government of West Bengal (GoWB) who also spoke in the seminar said consumption of plastic in the eastern region was increasing gradually over the past three years after HPL started production.

"West Bengal's per capita consumption is much below national average, but it increased to 3 kg per annum against the national average of 4 kg during the past 2-3 years," he pointed out.

HPL had exported about Rs 200 crore of raw materials during 2002-03, but with value added products, the figure was likely to go up substantially, Ujjal De, head (marketing), HPL, who also spoke in the seminar, said.

"Till now we were solely concentrating on export of raw materials, but since the last three to four months we are also targeting value added exports. The present figure is a paltry 500 mt per month," he informed.