Union Budget 2019 India: Amid rising global trade tension and competition, the government needs to provide stimulus to exporters to boost exports, an industry body said. Special tax concessions need to be considered for export-oriented manufacturing, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) said. Even as India was able to fight global headwinds in the last few years, recent fall in consumption and investment growth has raised concerns again. There is a need to designate export-manufacturing zones to attract more foreign and domestic investments, the FICCI also said in its pre-union budget recommendation to the finance ministry.
The industry body also recommended creation of an institutional mechanism for Global Market Intelligence to regularly carry out market studies, sector specific studies to understand the dynamics of global trade, barriers to trade, market entry opportunities, among others. An export information portal needs to be put into place which makes available detailed information to the exporters, it added. The export oriented sectors including handlooms, textiles, gems and jewellery, leather products, tourism should be provided additional fiscal support, the FICCI noted in its recommendations. To build brands and promote Make-in-India products, the government needs to take measures for creating massive campaigns in the foreign markets, it said.
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The Budget 2019 should be leveraged to promote business sentiments and encourage more investments, the FICCI also said. It also talked about bringing down the corporate tax rate for all firms to 25 percent, as had been proposed earlier. The government in its 2015-16 budget had said that the corporate tax rate would be gradually lowered to 25 percent from 30 percent over the next four years. The available exemption limit to companies would also be phased out, it added. The tax rate was reduced to 25 percent for companies with a turnover of up to Rs 250 crore in the subsequent years.