The Hindu Business Line : Film export promotion council on the cards

The agenda
There is a suggestion for a cess on movie tickets to generate resources for the proposed council and to finance anti-piracy efforts.
The meeting is also expected to consider fixing targets for the existing and new markets in order to evolve a specific policy to promote Indian films abroad.

New Delhi June 18 With select Bollywood blockbusters hitting the goldmine on the NRI circuit, the Government is considering institutionalising the process of export of films from here.

So, there could soon be an export promotion council for films, jostling for space along with the other councils promoting engineering or chemical exports.

The proposal for an export council has come from industry core groups constituted by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and is likely to be put up for discussion on Tuesday at a meeting convened by the Ministry.

In fact, Tuesday's meeting has an exhaustive agenda before it. For one, there is a suggestion for a cess on movie tickets to generate resources for the proposed council and also to finance anti-piracy efforts. The meeting is also expected to consider fixing targets for the existing and new markets in order to evolve a specific policy to promote Indian films abroad. If the council proposal goes through, film exporters could get access to the Commerce Ministry's funds for market surveys from the Market Access Initiative Scheme.

The meeting will also look into the industry's demand for export credit on easy terms and would take a look at the data to see whether a case could be built up for securing duty drawback on export of films.

The drawback scheme allows exporters to get refunds of the taxes paid domestically for producing export products.

The Government's plans to provide a leg-up to export of films is not likely to be confined to Bollywood (Hindi) movies only, if the guest list for the Tuesday meeting is anything to go by.

On the invitee list are personalities from South India engaged in film production, people from Film and Television Producers Guild and from the leading chambers of commerce and industry.

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