Exporters will have to wait longer for the Foreign Trade Policy which could be delayed by another month because of the forthcoming elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.

“The FTP is likely to be announced only after October 18, after the election process is over in the two States because of the application of the model code of conduct,” a Commerce Ministry official told BusinessLine .

The official said that the broad contours of the FTP have been finalised, but the key issue of the outlay that the Finance Ministry would sanction for various export promotion schemes needed to be settled.

“There has been no decision on the amount of money that the Finance Ministry would give to the Commerce Ministry for the FTP. That is a vital element which would help the Ministry to decide the number of sectors that could be incentivised and to what extent,” the official said.

Exporters restless

Exporters, who have been waiting for the FTP ever since the Budget was announced in July, are getting restless.

“The interest subvention scheme for exporters lapsed on March 31. We shouldn’t be made to wait for the FTP announcement for extension of the scheme,” said Rafeeque Ahmed, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations.

The FTP, that will include both an annual plan and a five-year long-term policy, will also focus on lowering transaction costs and reducing paper work. The Commerce Ministry is trying to rationalise the export promotion schemes that include Focus Product, Focus Market and Market-Linked Focus Product schemes, to avoid overlaps and ensure that sectors in need of support get incentivised.

It is also in favour of increasing the level of incentives from the present 2 per cent to 3 per cent to more than 5 per cent.

“Exporters are up in arms against the proposal to discontinue incentives for certain sector. But we also feel that there is a need to give higher rates of incentives for it to make a substantial difference. It all boils down to how much funds we have,” he said.

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