The Hindu Business Line : Proactive support from Govt key to achieving export target: DGFT

New Delhi, April 11 The annual supplement to the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) setting out an ambitious 30 per cent export target for the current fiscal in the face of a likely global slowdown would entail not only all the efforts on the part of our exporters but pro-active support from the Government, the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Mr R.S. Gujral, said today.

In an interview to Business Line here soon after the policy supplement was unveiled by the Union Commerce & Industry Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, here, the DGFT said that a review of the last year’s export performance reveals that there were specific sectors where there has been a decline in export.

“Significant are those sectors where they are labour-intensive and less import-intensive. Those sectors have obviously been provided additional relief in this policy — whether it is vegetables, fruits or floriculture, additional amounts have been provided.”

Focus market

The Minister also said that Focus Market and Focus Products schemes would be calibrated — some focus markets with 10 of them announced, the incentives would be sought to be calibrated so that some support is provided to the sector which have been hit by the rupee appreciation to seek new markets in these identified countries, he added.

Asked about relief to export segments that had been affected by the rupee appreciation, Mr Gujral said that the average export obligation under Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme would be reduced by the percentage of the reduction in the overall exports if that is beyond 5 per cent. He said there are about 8 to 10 major areas where the exporters would all get the benefits — coffee, cashew, handicrafts, carpets, some silk readymade garments and certain segments of readymade garments such as cotton and plastics where there has been more than 5 per cent decline in exports.

Transaction costs

To a specific query about reduction in transaction cost to trade and industry, the DGFT said that the policy mentions about 25 major measures in this area. In certain areas, specific timeframe is provided where Central Excise/Customs should provide the certification for clearance within 21 days or 30 days. Some additional ports have been notified for the export incentive schemes to reduce transaction cost.

Electronic data interchange

On electronic data interchange (EDI) to bring benefits to exporters reeling under relentless transaction cost, Mr Gujral conceded that the right thing is to have a 100 per EDI interface for all the schemes operated by the Ministry. He said that under DGFT, currently EDI exists only for Duty Entitlement Pass Book (DEPB) scheme.

“There were a lot of glitches in that scheme for a period of 6 to 7 months, those all have been resolved,” he said adding that “we have mentioned in the supplement that two other schemes — Advance Authorization Scheme and EPCG — would be brought under within three months. Obviously all other schemes would take a little longer time. We have not specified a clear target but Focus Product, Focus Market, Vishesh Krishi and Gram Udyog Yojana (VKGY) have been kept in the next phase after we bring in advance authorization an EPCG under EDI mode.”

Procedural simplification

Asked whether he would confidently say that procedural simplification and cumbersome schedules for exporters have been totally done away with, Mr Gujral said, “My response to this is that in normal course, DGFT will not have made any change in procedure/policy in the last 10 months or so I have been there. The tendency is to put changes in the policy. There were close to 50 issues where procedural simplification or resolutions of problems were to be done. I told my officials let us not wait for policy. If exporters face problem, we don’t need to wait for policy and we need to solve them at once. We have done that and the changes announced in the policy today are over and above that”.

He said that the job of the DGFT is to facilitate and to provide an enabling environment and that is what we have done and “I have full confidence in the resilience of our exporters” in compassing the export target set for the current fiscal.

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