To cushion the impact of global economic slowdown on the country’s exports, the government will unveil some sops for exporters next week. The package, sources said, would include interest subsidy and extension of various Focus Product and Focus Market schemes to the labour-intensive sectors.
?There will be some new incentives for labour-intensive sectors like carpets, leather and textiles which are under pressure,? sources said.
The proposed incentives, which are likely to be under the Focus Market Scheme, would allow exporters to get duty credit of 3% on the value of consignments. Under the Focus Product Scheme, exporters can avail of duty credit of 5%.
Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma is likely to announce the new set of incentives on October 13. The ministry is scheduled to have meetings with the export promotion councils on October 7 and Board of Trade is slated to meet on October 11.
Sharma has had interactions with the finance ministry on the additional sops. North Block, sources say, has already agreed for an interest subvention for the export credit in the range of 2-3% and the Reserve Bank of India is likely to notify this soon.
The sops would be specifically targeted at the sectors hit hard by the demand crunch in global markets.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations (Fieo) president Ramu Deora said, ?In the backdrop of uncertain economic conditions in the US and Europe, we are hopeful that the benefits under the Focus Product and Focus Market schemes would be extended to markets like China, Indonesia and the Middle-East.?
Deora also said that labour-intensive sectors like agri-commodities, carpets, leather and textiles do need the support in turbulent times.
The government had announced fiscal incentives worth R500 crore to exporters of select products earlier this year. Similar sops worth R 600 crore were announced in January 2010 too.
During the April-August period this fiscal, India’s exports grew 54.2% to $134.5 billion. However, commerce secretary Rahul Khullar had said the high export growth rate would not be sustainable due to the uncertain economic conditions in the Western markets.