STEPS TAKEN TO BOOST EXPORTS

Government’s aims

Primary focus of Government export promotion schemes/ policies is to refund duties and taxes levied on inputs used in production of export products, reduce cost disability by providing incentives to specified products and improve all-round ease of doing business.

Overall thrust is on enhancing competitiveness and growth in exports of all products groups across all destinations. As a result, our export products and destinations are fairly diversified.

In Financial Year 2018-19 products were exported to 233 countries/territories covering all big and small trading countries, across 168 principal commodity groups. Government is taking holistic measures to make exports competitive by

• ensuring access to affordable credit
• initiating exporter friendly schemes
• promoting districts as export hubs
• improving logistics
• improving utilisation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).

Steps taken by Government for Export Promotion

1. A new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2015-20: Launched on 1^st April 2015. The policy, inter alia, rationalised the earlier export promotion schemes and introduced two new schemes, namely
   1. Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) for improving export of goods   and
   2. ‘Services Exports from India Scheme (SEIS)’ for increasing exports of services.

Duty credit scrips issued under these schemes were made fully transferable.

1. A new Logistics Division: Created in the Department of Commerce for integrated development of the logistics sector.  India’s rank in World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index moved up from 54 in 2014 to 44 in 2018.

1. Interest Equalization Scheme: on pre and post shipment rupee export credit was introduced from April 2015 providing interest equalisation for labour intensive / MSME sectors as also merchant exporters

1. For improving Ease of doing business, online issuance of Importer Exporter Codes (IEC), has been started. India’s rank in World Bank ‘Ease of Doing Business’ ranking improved from 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019 with the rank in ‘trading across borders’ moving up from 122 to 80.

1. A new scheme called “Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES” was launched with effect from 1^st April 2017 to address the export infrastructure gaps in the country.

1. A comprehensive “Agriculture Export Policy” was launched in December, 2018 with an aim to double farmers’ income by 2022 and provide an impetus to agricultural exports.

1. A new scheme called “Transport and Marketing Assistance” (TMA) has been launched for mitigating disadvantage of higher cost of transportation for export of specified agriculture products.

What is a Duty Credit Scrip?

A Duty Credit Scrip is a scrip which can be used for the payment of Customs Duty (were earlier allowed to be used for the payment of Service Tax & Excise as well.) These scrips are issued to both the exporters of goods as well as exporters of services under the various schemes mentioned in the Foreign Trade Policy.