Hegde initiated his interactive discussions with large business houses here on Wednesday beginning with Larsen and Toubro on issues relating to project exports. Later in the day, he met representatives of the Thapar group.

L&T CEO S D Kulkarni assured the minister that with supportive measures from the government, his group, which was involved in the export of capital goods and project exports, could achieve an export growth of 25 per cent in the next three years.

The commerce minister, on his part insisted that he wanted the top corporates to increase their exports turnover as a percentage of their total sales.

The L&T group, in its presentation, sought government assistance in the form of ECGC guarantee/EXIM financing for large projects; support for cement exports lest the facilitybuilt up by the group should become infructuous; and the need to treat zero duty deemed exports at par with physical exports. The group also pointed out that there was substantial scope for the company to increase exports in the field of engineering projects, cement and information technology.

As per the available data, India's exports of machinery and instruments have increased by 80 per cent from Rs 2,776 crore in 1995-96 to Rs 4,314 crore in 1997-98. The growth rate was 22 per cent in 1995-96 and 35 per cent in 1996-97. Ironically, the value of production in machinery and instruments sector was Rs 13,600 crore in 1996-97 and exports constituted less than one per cent of production.

Exports as a percentage of total sales of top 22 corporates of the country exceeding a turnover of over Rs 2,000 crore stood at a mere 9.33 per cent reflective of the tardy growth in export, official sources told PTI.