Headed by commerce minister Ramakrishna Hegde, the board, reconstituted on Feb 5, will have 44 members including top government functionaries and corporate leaders. The board was initially set up in May, 1989 to ensure continuous dialogue with trade and industry on major developments in international trade with particular reference to formulation of export strategies, an official press release said. The other terms of reference for the body were to review export performance of various sectors, identify constraints, suggest measures to maximise export earnings, examine existing institutional frame work for exports and re-examine policy instruments, incentives and procedures for exports.

Commerce secretary, revenue secretary, secretary (economic relations) in the external affairs ministry and textilesecretary were members of the board while director general of foreign trade (DGFT) would be the member-secretary, it said. Other prominent members of the board include Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce (Ficci) president Sudhir Jalan, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) president Rajesh V shah, Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation (FIEO) president Navratan Samdria, Chemexil chairman Ramu S Deora, Larson and Toubro chief executive officer (CEO) S D Kulkarni, Anil Ambani (Reliance), Dr Anji Reddy (Reddy's Laboratories), Mallika Srinivasan (TVS Suzuki) and L M Thapar (BILT).

The board will be meeting in the backdrop of the dismal export performance during the last nearly two years due to the sluggish international market and South East Asian meltdown.India's exports in the first nine months of the current fiscal declined by 2.88 per cent compared to the same period last year. However, during December 1998, exports increased by 6.73 per cent to $2.79 billion against $2.61 compared to the sameperiod in 1997.