The Hindu Business Line : Govt working on sops for labour-intensive export sectors

NEW DELHI: The Government on Tuesday said it will soon decide on sops for labour-intensive export sectors, like engineering goods and textiles, hurt by the global slowdown, after completing an ongoing performance review.

“Sectoral reviews are on and they should be completed soon,” the Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, told reporters on the sidelines of the 9th CII-NID Design Summit here.

He said a decision on incentives to exporters impacted by the falling demand would be taken after the review is completed but did not specify the timeline.

The Commerce Ministry is currently studying the impact of the packages, like interest subsidy and incentives to explore new markets, provided by the Government to exporters.

On the prospects of India’s exports, which had been contracting since October 2008 due to the meltdown, Mr Sharma expressed hope that shipments would turn positive in the last quarter of the current fiscal.

“Hopefully, we are moving in the positive territory by the final quarter (of this fiscal),” Mr Sharma said. He said the contraction in India’s exports has narrowed down but shipments in segments like apparels and handicrafts are yet to pick up.

After contracting by about 40 per cent in May, the downslide has reduced to 6.6 per cent in October.

Exports in October were valued at $13.19 billion from $14.13 billion in the year-ago period.— PTI

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