Trade policy’s first target is 15% export growth

Trade policy’s first target is 15% export growth
The Hindu Business Line, August 28, 2009, Page 1

Sharma not sure of ‘recovery’, sets $200-b figure by March 2011.

Our Bureau, New Delhi

Against persistent export contraction, the Government on Thursday announced a slew of relief measures for exporters.

These include incentives to capture 26 new markets in Africa and Latin America, duty-free import of capital goods for technological upgradation, dollar-denominated credit and doing away with application fees for grant of incentives under various export schemes.

Announcing the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) for 2009-2014, the Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, however, refused to hazard a specific export target for this fiscal.

“Even though economists are talking of emergence of ‘green shoots’, I remain hesitant to hazard a guess on the nature and extent of this recovery,” he said, adding that “we would like to achieve an annual export growth of 15 per cent over 2010-11 with an annual export target of $200 billion by March 2011.”

The Minister said the Government would take stock of the situation in March 2011, halfway through the series, and may even reset the targets. He said the Government could give suitable support to certain specific sectors in the mid-term review as the situation warrants.

In one of the many innovative steps, the Government decided to set up a Directorate of Trade Remedy Measures to support industry and exporters, especially from the small and medium enterprises sector, in availing themselves of their rights through trade remedy instruments such as anti-dumping, safeguard and countervailing (anti-subsidy) duties.

Mr Sharma said due to the global slowdown, some countries have resorted to protectionist measures posing barrier to free trade, which has aggravated the problem for Indian exporters.

The Government’s short-term goal through the policy was to reverse the declining trend of exports and to provide additional support, especially to the employment-intensive sectors such as textiles, handloom, leather, handicrafts, gems and jewellery as well as the plantation that have been hit badly by recession in the developed world.

The Minister said the duty refund scheme (Duty Entitlement Passbook Scheme) will stay till December 2010, while income-tax holiday for export-oriented units will continue till March 2011.

The Government has also decided to constitute a committee comprising the Finance Secretary, the Commerce Secretary and the Chairman of the Indian Banks’ Association that would meet periodically to ensure that dollar credit needs of exporters are met in a timely manner. In a bid to bring down transaction cost and institutional bottlenecks, over the next few years, additional ports/locations would be enabled on the Electronic Data Interchange. Besides, an Inter-Ministerial Committee has been established to serve as a single window mechanism for resolution of trade-related grievances.