The “final contours’’ of the scheme for providing export credit at low interest rates announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in September last year are being firmed up and would be implemented soon, said Commerce and Industry Minister, Piyush Goyal.

“Export credit on easy terms could go up three times in the next 3-4 years as a result of the measures being taken by the government,” Goyal said at a meeting with traders organised by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Monday.

Goyal also called for creation of a database for traders in order to have better schemes. “If we want to have some scheme..we need to find out how many people need to give benefits. If we don’t have accurate data, how will we have schemes,” he said. Giving an example, the Minister said that he had been considering an amnesty scheme for businesses that could not meet their commitments under schemes such as Advance Licence or EPCG. “But we need data for this such as how many traders will benefit and how much revenue the government will have to forego,” he said, adding that data collection was important and should not be opposed as was being done in case of the National Population Register.

In September, Sitharaman had announced revised priority sector lending norms for exporters which would release an additional funding of ₹ 36,000-68,000 crore to them. It was decided that export finance would be actively monitored by an inter-ministerial working group in the commerce department.

Stating that the Mudra loan scheme had worked very well for the small sector, the Minister said the government could explore going for ‘Mudra Plus’ scheme with additional features.

The Minister further said that he would hold a meeting with traders after the Delhi elections next month to discuss problems and suggestions to improve the financing situation.

Sale of counterfeit products

Earlier, CAIT welcomed US President Donald Trump’s move to release new rules to curb sales of counterfeit and pirated goods on e-commerce platforms and the traders body urged Goyal to implement a similiar policy in India. The new recommendations published by the US Department of Homeland Security puts the onus of policing counterfeit goods on e-commerce hubs like Amazon, eBay and Alibaba.

“If the US can take this action, why can’t the Indian government take the same action to refurbish the image and nature of the Indian e-commerce market?” asked Praveen Khandelwal, National Secretary General, CAIT.

With inputs from Bengaluru bureau

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