MINISTER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY (SHRI KAMAL NATH)
(a) to (e): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (e) OF LOK
SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO.370 FOR ANSWER ON 22ND AUGUST,
2006 REGARDING “EXPORT OF SERVICES â€
(a) and (b):Yes, sir. A substantial growth in the export of services has been
witnessed during each of the last four years. In fact, there has been three
fold increase in the export of services during this period. The details of
sector-wise services exports in the last four years are as under:
(US $ million)
Sector 2005-06 2004-05 2003-04 2002-03
(Total) 60610 46031 26868 20763
i)Travel 7789 6495 5037 3312
ii)Transportion 6277 4798 3207 2536
iii)Insurance 1042 909 419 369
iv)#G.n.i.e. 305 328 240 293
v) Miscellaneo 45197 33501 17965 14253 (23600) (17200) (12800) (9600) Source: RBI
# Government not included elsewhere.
It indicates the portion of Software Services in the ‘Miscellaneous’Sector.
(c) to (e): Export of services is relatively a new and upcoming sector of exports in
India as compared to the developed countries, where export of services has been
in existence since many decades. India is likely to match the exports of services
of the developed nations in the ensuing four years if the present rate of growth
is sustained.
The Government has taken the following initiatives with respect to Services
Exports while announcing the Foreign Trade Policy on 1st April, 2006:-
(i) An Export Promotion Council for Services is being set up with the mandate
to map opportunities for key services in key markets and thereafter to develop
strategic market access programme, to coordinate efforts for intensive brand
building and marketing programme in target markets and to make necessary
interventions with regard to policy, procedure and bilateral/multilateral issues.
(ii) There is a ‘Served from India Scheme’ administered by the Department
of Commerce under which all service providers including Healthcare and
Educational Service Providers as well as Engineering Process Outsourcing
(EPO) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) service providers are
entitled to duty credit scrip equivalent to 10% of the foreign exchange
earned by them in the preceding financial year and the scrip can be
redeemed for import of any capital goods.
(iii) Consultancy exporters can also seek financial assistance under the
Market Development Assistance (MDA) and Market Access Initiative
(MAI) schemes. Under these schemes, export promotion activities like
participation in Exhibitions, printing publicity materials, Market Studies
etc. are encouraged.
