Foreign Trade Policy on April 18 to boost exports: Sharma

04 Apr 2013 Evaluate

Concerned over the muted export, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said the government will come out with a pragmatic Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) on April 18 with a view to promoting shrinking exports and narrowing down trade deficit. The Minister had already held detailed consultations with the finance minister on contours of the package to boost exports, to be announced as part of the FTP. 

In the first 11-month of FY13, India’s exports declined by 4% to $265.95 billion, while, the current account deficit touched an all time high of 4.6% of the GDP in the first half of this fiscal and is estimated to touch 5% this fiscal. Sectors like engineering and textiles are registering negative growth and are expected to get some sops in the FTP.  

The government is looking at ways to increase exports through the FTP to bridge the growing deficits in the trade. The commerce ministry is also examining a number of proposals from the industry that include extending direct cash incentives to exporters of a larger number of products to targeted markets. The government is also considering an export development fund with a likely corpus of about Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 10,000 to help the exporters in their marketing initiatives and interest subsidy scheme to more export sectors in the upcoming FTP.

Further, it is expected that with the new FTP, exporters are likely to get benefits under focus product and focus market scheme. Special Economic Zones, which contribute about 30 per cent of the country's overall exports, are also expected to get incentives.

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