The government is aware of the problems faced by exporters and efforts are being taken to boost exports, including to emerging markets through preferential and free trade agreements, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday.

Addressing an event organised by the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC), the Minister said he had a meeting with member exporters from EEPC India in August, based on which a short and medium-term strategy for enhancing engineering shipments has been formulated.

“Efforts are also being undertaken to increase our exports to emerging markets of Africa, Latin America through PTAs/FTAs (preferential/free trade agreements),” the Minister of State for Commerce said.

Based on the feedback from EEPC India, non-tariff barriers for engineering sector have been identified, including the list of countries where test reports of the Central Power Research Institute are not accepted, he said.

“These have been shared with the concerned territorial divisions of the Department for taking them up bilaterally with the concerned country/region, for resolving the issues expeditiously,” the Minister said.

Outlining the measures taken by the government to enhance exports, the Minister said a fully electronic refund module for quick and automated ITC (income tax credit) is now in place, and the remission of duties for taxes on export products (RoDTEP) scheme, which will replace the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), has already been announced.

A new scheme known as NIRVIK to provide higher insurance coverage to banks on their export credit to Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) is being worked out, Puri said.

The scheme will provide more comfort to banks to lend to exporters.

Published On : 10-12-2019

Source : The Hindu Businessline