Govt must take immediate steps to boost exports, urges FIEO

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SME Times News Bureau | 17 Dec, 2015
Apex exporters body, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Wednesday urged the Government for immediate intervention to curb continuous decline in exports.

Reacting to the Trade Data for the month of November, 2015 which has reflected continuous decline for the last 12 months in a row, much worse than decline in exports during global slowdown of 2008-09, S C Ralhan, President, FIEO said that November, 2015 trade data which has further worsened to 20.01 billion dollars with a decline of 24.43 percent has been rather the highest decline in the past couple of years.

Ralhan urges the government for the immediate announcement of revision in Duty Drawback rate for engineering sector looking into the duty revision on certain major inputs including the safeguard duty.

He said that looking at the current trend we expect to end the year with a export figure of somewhere in between 260-270 billion dollars.

"Recent past particularly last few days have also seen further decline in global crude oil prices which is also expected to have further negative impact on Indiaâs exports. Talking about the top major commodities traded, positive performance has been shown by only 7 items out of 30 product groups in November, 2015 as against 9 out of 30 product groups in October, 2015."

FIEO President has also urged that immediate refund of taxes and duties such Excise, CENVAT, Drawback, Service tax and VAT is required to further give a boost to exports. Besides FIEO Chief is of the view that issues related to inverted duty structures which make India a trading destination rather than a manufacturing hub, proportional increase in all industry rates of service tax, exemption of exports from the purview of service tax particularly for services such as ECGC premium, Services rendered at Container Freight Stations, Clearing House Agent Charges, Terminal Handling Charges and Bank Charges on collection of bills apart from rates being charged by CONCOR which are too high are some of the major issues which can be immediately looked into.

Ralhan reiterates that redressal of number of issues relating to transaction cost could provide some relief to export sector even during such a difficult global economic scenario.

Also improvement in infrastructure bottlenecks is the need of the hour, which is further pulling exports towards the negative territory Ralhan stated.