The country's high interest rates are a big deterrent for exporters community and the commerce ministry is working with its finance counterpart to help them at this front, a senior government official said on Wednesday. Director General of Foreign Trade Santosh Kumar Sarangi said that the department of commerce has been "struggling" to convince the finance ministry regarding the relevance of the Interest Equalisation Scheme (IES) and the extent to which it is maintaining manufacturing competitiveness. Sarangi said there are many studies which suggest that very high collateral demand by financial institutions is a big deterrent for MSMEs to access institutional finance and that deters them from getting into the export market. "So how do we ensure collateral free or a subsidised collateral arrangement for MSMEs is something that the department of commerce is working with the department of expenditure," he said adding India has high interest rates vis-a-vis its peer nations. The repo