In order to promote out-bound shipments and manufactured products from export-oriented units (EoUs), software technology parks of India (STPIs) and electronic hardware technology parks (EHTPs), government has relaxed certain norms like doing away with mandatory warehousing requirement for EoUs and software and electronic hardware technology parks.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has also eased rules for the existing EHTP and STP units to avail tax exemptions in the case of conversion or merger of EoU and vice versa and added this in a notification, amending the foreign trade policy 2015-20. DGFT said an EoU which is into agriculture, aquaculture, horticulture and poultry may be permitted to remove specified goods in connection with its activities for use “outside the premises of the unit”, earlier, it was allowed only for outside the bonded area.
The EoU scheme, which was introduced in December 1980, had allowed manufacturing units in export processing zones to enjoy 100 per cent tax exemption on profits from overseas sale and duty-free import of raw material. The STPI scheme is a 100 percent export oriented scheme for the development and export of computer software, including export of professional services using communication links or physical media.