The government’s decision to release Rs 56,027 crore pending tax refunds under various schemes to exporters will help the apparel sector get additional export orders in the coming festive season, the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) has said.
"It will help exporters commit to bigger export orders and thus help them achieve the ambitious target of exporting $400 billion of merchandise this year,” said A Sakthivel, AEPC Chairman, in a statement.
The decision will benefit more than 45,000 exporters across the country, most of whom are in the MSME category, he added.
It will definitely ease their working capital needs, he said.
The healthy recovery in international demand for apparel ahead of the festive season will ensure that apparel exports this fiscal are well above pre-Covid levels.
"The refunds will help the sector come out of the ill-effects of the pandemic and thus help save lakhs of jobs,” Sakthivel said.
The schemes for which refunds will be released include MEIS (Rs 33,010 crore), SEIS (Rs 10,002 crore), RoSCTL (Rs 5,286 cr), RoSL (Rs 330 crore), RoDTEP (Rs 2,568 crore) and other legacy schemes including Target Plus (Rs 4,831 crore).
This amount is over and above the duty remission of Rs 12,454 crore for the RoDTEP scheme, and Rs 6,946 crore for the RoSCTL scheme already announced for exports made in 2021-22, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.