The Finance minister said this while addressing the central board of the Reserve Bank of India here on Saturday.

Stating that the "thrust should be on export growth," the Finance Minister said that the export-import policy, to be announced on April 15 by the commerce ministry, would try to eliminate the impediments to export effort.

Exports, it may be recalled, had remained subdued throughout 1997-98. During the period April to February, they went up only marginally by 2.63 per cent which was lower than the growth of 5.61 per cent recorded during the corresponding period of the previous financial year. Low export growth also pushed up trade deficit which was $ 6.4 billion at the end of February 1998. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Bimal Jalan, in his welcome address,expressed concern over deceleration in exports and underlined the need for augmenting export efforts.

The members of the RBI board specifically expressed concern over the subdued state of the capital market and urged the Minister to take steps for its revival. They also wanted special efforts to be taken to ensure flow of capital to infrastructure like power and housing. The Minister took note of the suggestions and assured the RBI members of positive action.

The RBI, it may be mentioned, took some hard decisions to isolate the Indian foreign exchange market from the currency turmoil in South-East Asia. Although some of the decisions, particularly pertaining to tightening of the monetary policy, drew flak from certain quarters, the exchange rate has remained relatively stable as compared with currencies in certain other countries.