CII President, S. Gopalakrishnan has called the new Foreign Trade Policy the right step at the right time and said this will boost investor confidence in SEZs.
He also welcomed moves such as widening of interest subvention scheme, zero duty EPCG benefits being made available to all sectors and procedural simplification.
Gopalakrishnan said, “The resilient spirit displayed by the Indian industry has helped India attain $300 billion in exports. But the matter of concern is that trade deficit has increased to $190 billion, which necessitates greater import containment and export facilitation.”
He said granting two per cent interest subvention to all the sectors would help in strengthening exports performance.
However, he added that though the SEZ norms have been relaxed, the industry is still looking forward to removal of MAT and DDT.