Cost optimisation meet held

President of the Exim club, Sharad Mody, while delivering the welcome address said that in the competitive and globally integrated economy of today, prices were dictated by market forces and industry can only make profits by controlling costs in each business operation. He hoped that the deliberation would help the participants to find innovative and practical techniques to reduce costs.

In his address, Dr Murthy mentioned the advantage of unitisation, palletisation, seas-air route of transportation, bar-coding and latest concepts in packaging. He also answered questions on packaging difficulties by participants.

Capt Couto, defining logistics, mentioned that the role of logistics manager was very wide and required the manager to have in-depth knowledge on strengths of shipping lines, transshipment details and above all the cynical trends of freight rates and exploiting these trends.

Krishnamurthy gave a detailed idea on export credit, foreign exchange management, and innovate derivative solutions. She exhorted the members to opt for Advance against collections’ rather than outright discount of export bills of exchange. She disclosed that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was offering huge flexibility to exporters to cancel and rebook foreign exchange contracts for better rupee realisation.

Indian corporates, in her view, were not actively monitoring the exchange fluctuations and taking the best advantages of the market forces. She also covered interest rate and currency swaps, besides interest rate derivatives. The seminar ended with a vote of thanks by the Exim club executive committee member, Manish Shah.