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The Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC) has lauded the government’s emphasis on developing a framework for facilitating exports of goods and services, as well as promoting employment generation.
Commenting on the five-year Foreign Trade Policy, IMC President Prabodh Thakker said the introduction of two new schemes: Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) and Services Exports from India Scheme (SEIS) were steps in the right direction.
However, he hoped that the government would continue to have regular interactions with all stakeholders to meet their objectives. “The strategically important MSME sector has been given due recognition. Clusters have been identified based on the export potential of the product for improving the country’s trade balance,”' he said in a statement.
He added that the Chamber endorsed the fact that the Directorate General of Foreign Trade would be implementing the Niryat Bandhu Scheme for mentoring new and potential exporters on the intricacies of foreign trade.
EEPC India Chairman Anupam Shah noted that the foreign trade policy would improve ease of doing business, and make Indian products competitive. He added that engineering exports, the biggest contributors to India’s merchandise exports, would get a boost with a host of bold initiatives unveiled in the policy.
However, Shah has noted some downsides of the new policy. He said, “Though export benefits for the engineering tariff lines have been reduced, no transition period has been given. Six months of transition period is necessary so that exporters can adjust to the new framework. Further, the interest subvention scheme has also not materialised, which will adversely impact the exports of engineering goods to some extent.”
With global trade being buffeted by the rough weather, the policy has given a focus on improving domestic competitiveness, Shah added, like reducing the export obligation to 75 per cent from 90 per cent for the import of duty free capital goods.
“The focus is clearly on ease of doing business by initiatives like e-governance and reduction in the transaction costs. Besides, involvement of the states more actively would make a big difference in infrastructure support to the exporting sector,” he said in a statement.
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