(a) the salient features of the export policy of the Government;
(b) the number of countries in the World associated with this policy;
(c) whether the Government proposes to start export with the small countries;
(d) if so, the details thereof and the reasons therefor; and
(e) the time by which the exports are likely to be started?
THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
(SHRI C. R. CHAUDHARY)
(a) The salient features of the export policy, incorporated in the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2015-20, launched by Government of India on April 1, 2015 and its Mid-term Review launched on December 5, 2017 and in other policy measures taken from time to time are as follows:
(i) FTP 2015-20 provides a framework for increasing exports of goods and services as well as generation of employment and increasing value addition in the country, in line with the ‘Make in India’, ‘Digital India’, ‘Skills India’, ‘Startup India’ and ‘Ease of doing business‘ initiatives.
(ii) The main policy objective is to enable India to respond to the challenges of the external environment keeping in view the rapidly evolving international trading architecture and make trade a major contributor to the country’s economic growth and development.
(iii) The policy provides the framework for promotion of exports through schemes of incentives on exports and duty remission/exemption on inputs for export production.
(iv) The policy introduces two new schemes, namely ‘Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS)’ for improving export of specified goods by merging five earlier schemes for better coherence and ‘Services Exports from India Scheme (SEIS)’ for increasing exports of notified services.Duty credit scrips issued under MEIS and SEIS and the goods imported against these scrips are fully transferable. The Scheme now covers exports 8020 tariff lines at 8 digits level to all countries.
(v) The policy includes measures to nudge procurement of capital goods from indigenous manufacturers under the EPCG scheme by reducing specific export obligation from 90 percent to 75 percent of the normal export obligation.
(vi) The policy provides issue of Advance Authorisation to allow duty free import of input, which is physically incorporated in export product within a specified timelines.
(vii) Interest Equalization Scheme on pre and post shipment rupee export credit has been introduced from 1.4.2015 to help exporters in accessing credit at reuced rates
(viii) ‘Niryat Bandhu Scheme’ has been galvanised and repositioned to achieve the objectives of ‘Skill India’ and trade promotion/awareness.
(ix) Trade facilitation and enhancing the ease of doing business measures have been taken with special focus on moving towards paperless working. The Government has launched a Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) clearances project with effect from 1st April, 2016. The scheme enables the importers/exporters to file a common electronic ‘Integrated Declaration’ on the Indian Customs Electronic Commerce/Electronic Data Interchange (EC/EDI) Gateway i.e. ICEGATE portal. India also ratfied the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation (TFA) in April 2016 for enhancing trade facilitation.
(x) A new scheme called “Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES)” has been launched from 1st April 2017 to address the export infrastructure gaps in the country.
(xi) The Mid-term Review of Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20 launched on 5th December 2017 provides more incentives for export promotion. For example, export incentives under MEIS have been increased by 2% for labour intensive and MSME sectors w.e.f 1.11.2017 in addition to already announced increase in MEIS incentives from 2% to 4% for Ready-made Garments and Made Ups in the labour intensive Textiles Sector.Similarly, the SEIS (Service Export from India Scheme) incentive rate have been increased by 2% w.e.f 1.11.2017 for all notified services such as Business, Legal, Accounting, Architectural, Engineering, Educational, Hospital, Hotels and Restaurants.
(b). India’s Foreign Trade Policy supports exports to all countries (except those notified under the FTP for implementation of UN sanctions/embargo). In order to create an architecture for India’s global trade and expanding its markets, bilateral consultations and multilateral consultations/negotiations are made by the Government with potential partner countries from time to time under WTO regime and other Regional Trade Organisations/Agreements.
(c)to(e). In the year 2017-18, India exported to 238 countries/ Special Administrative Regions including small countries. The new FTP 2015-20 focuses on the goal of exploring new markets, especially in South Asia, Africa, CIS and Latin America.
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