The Government should re-examine its export strategy as recent Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have encouraged imports rather than exports, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) suggested on Friday.

Pointing to India's poor exports growth in November, the FIEO said that the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) or Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) or Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) facilitated more imports and failed failed to provide the desired boost to exports.

M Rafeeque Ahmed, President of FIEO, said, "The recent export figure points to revisiting our strategy for exploiting the markets with which we have signed FTA, CECA or CEPA."

Ahmed added that Indian exports' growth lacked shine in recent months because of slow penetration of India exports in countries where the government has signed CEPA or CECA or FTAs in the past few years.

Indian exports to ASEAN, which includes countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Korea, slipped to US$14.66 billion in first half of current financial year, from US$36.74 billion in the corresponding period of previous financial year. On the other hand, imports from these countries jumped over the same period.

Mr. Ahmed urged the government to put all such countries under the Focus Market Scheme, if not, under Special Focus Market Scheme.

The commerce department, which negotiates such agreements, has also long been complaining that the benefits of these agreements are being reaped by India's trading partners.