SME Times News Bureau | 02 Apr, 2013
The government is expected to announce the annual supplement of Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) in third week of April that can address the immediate concerns to boost country's exports, said the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in its press release issued today.
Recently, the Commerce Minister, Anand Sharma has discussed several issues related to India's exports to the industry stalwarts so that it can help the ministry to make suitable decision and offer potential sops to the sector that is witnessing slow growth in past couple of months.
Consultations with FICCI, CII, Export Promotion Councils and FIEO and a meeting of the Board of Trade was convened on 22nd March 2013. Following this, the Commerce Ministry had a detailed consultations with the Finance Ministry on the contours of a package that may be announced as part of the Foreign Trade Policy, the Ministry said in the release.
The meeting between the Commerce Minister and the Finance Minister, P Chidambaram took place on 23rd March 2013 where both the ministers have talked about the issues at length.
Both the ministers have also held a second round of discussions in Durban on the margins of the BRICS Summit. The discussions between the two departments have been extremely constructive and are now in final stages, it said.
At the moment, the government has stated that the country is unlikely to achieve its export target of $360 billion for 2012-13. The cumulative value of exports in April-February period of 2012-13 has dropped by 4 percent at USD 265.95 billion. And, the trade deficit has widened to USD 182.09 billion and is expected to widen further between USD 193-196 billion in 2012-13.
