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Council asks Govt to help boost agro-exports

Mangalore April 24 The Chairman of the Cashew Exports Promotion Council of India (CEPCI), Mr Walter D'Souza, has said the abolition of service tax, which was announced in the Annual Supplement to the Foreign Trade Policy, has given a great relief from the trauma exporters were subjected to during the last three years.

"We urge the Union Government to ensure that the statutorily required notifications may be issued forthwith, effective April 1, 2007. The notification should include exemption from payment of service tax to all services and allied activities related to procurement, processing and export of cashews," he said.

Quoting the Union Commerce Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, Mr D'Souza said India's merchandise exports have registered a quantum jump at a CAGR of 25 per cent since 2004, from $63.8 billion to $125 billion in 2007.

Job impact

The incremental exports of all merchandise during the last three years have created additional 75 lakh jobs. This amounts to an average of 1.22 lakh jobs for every billion dollar exports.

"As against this average, the cashew exports create over five lakh jobs for an export turnover of about half a billion dollars. Hence it is imperative that the Government has a re-look at giving need-based additional incentives to ensure that the average job creation is raised to at least two lakhs per every billion dollar exports," he said.

He added that this can be achieved by pro-active support to raise the present level of contribution by the agro-exports sector from the present 3 per cent to at least 5 per cent in the basket of Indian exports.

To renew plea

Stating that the "Vishesh Krishi Upaj aur Gram Udyog Yojana' has been expanded by bringing in a few more products, he said; "It is regretted that the cashew exports that generate highest `Gram Udyogs' — almost 800 per cent more than the national average for all exports — has been inadvertently left out. We will be renewing our plea before the Union Minister at the interactive meeting he has promised to hold with all the Export Promotion Council chairmen next week".

More Stories on : Cashew | Exports & Imports | Taxation

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