The committee's other members are State Bank of India chief general manager H Lal, Canara Bank general manager AKS Rao, Bank of India general manager RN Buch, ANZ Grindlays' director and head of international services Soumen Basu, Vysya Bank advisor KRV Bhat, and RBI general manager MT Pabari, who will act as the member secretary of the committee.

The setting of the group is seen as a part of the central bank's efforts to boost sagging exports. Exporters had put a part of the blame for slowing export growth on the banking system's inadequateexport-credit facilities and cumbersome procedures.

The RBI's earlier attempt in June to give a booster dose to exporters by way of concessional financing to `incremental exports' had to be withdrawn following operational difficulties. The scheme's withdrawal was compensated by a two percentage point reduction in the export-refinance rate to 7 per cent.

These measures, though well received by exporters, failed to bring in the expected momentum in exports growth. Bankers had maintained that lack of credit facility was not holding up exports, and expressed their willingness to extend credit to any good proposal.

The RBI's present move is seen as an initiative to familiarise itself with the real state of affairs, and establish linkage between exports growth and export credit in a more cogent way.

The central bank set three focus areas as the terms of reference for the working group. The first one is "to study the procedures and working of the credit-delivery system for exports, including those in respectof foreigncurrency loans, and to make suggestions for reducing the repetitive documentation requirements and to improve the quality of non fund-based services to exporters".

The second terms of reference is "to review the operation of the scheme of Exchange Earners Foreign Currency (EEFC) accounts and remove procedural problems", and the third is "to make any other proposals which may improve the delivery of credit in a timely fashion for exports".

The group of officials will interact with exporters and local bank officials by visiting bank branches in some of the major exporting centres, especially where small- and medium-sized exporters are located. "The objective would be to make available export credit `on-line', including foreign-currency loans, on the basis of performance with minimum paper work, and provide related services efficiently," the RBI had stated in Friday's monetary policy review document.