The Cotton Textile Export Promotion Council has urged the government to enhance the time period for availing pre- and post-shipment credit to exporters and re-instate interest equalisation scheme to original levels of 3 per cent for 410 items.
Welcoming the new foreign trade policy, the Council urged the government to increase in RoDTEP rates for certain categories of made-up products (Home Textiles) falling under Chapter 94.
Sunil Patwari, Chairman, Texprocil, said though there are many initiatives in the FTP 2023 address many of the issues faced by exporters, there are still some areas that need to be addressed immediately to promote export of cotton textiles.
The government should extend the facility of duty-free imports of trimmings, embellishments and other specified items to exporters of made-ups and remove the import duty on raw cotton, he said.
Patwari said FTP has no end date with allowance provided for any dynamic or real time amendments. Other policy features such as moving from incentives to remission, focussing on export promotion through collaboration with exporters, states, districts and Indian Missions will help exporters.
Also read: Consider cotton yarn in interest subvention scheme: Texprocil
Ease of doing business
Promoting ease of doing business and emphasising on emerging areas such as e-commerce and export hubs will provide necessary relief to the exporters who were badly hit due to the various disruptions in the economic activities.
The FTP has further introduced the new amnesty scheme for one-time settlement of defaults in export obligation by Advance and EPCG authorisation holders.
The government’s approach to bring digitization of applications related to Advance Authorisation/ EPCG/DFIA/Import & Export Licensing, automatic system-based approvals of applications will improve the ease of doing business and reduce transaction costs for exporters, said Patwari.
The move to make rupee a global currency and allowing international trade settlement in the domestic currency will help in internationalising the Indian currency in the long run. The FTP benefits have been extended to e-commerce exports, which are estimated to grow to $200-300 billion by 2023, he said.