Exports of services seen rising

MINI EXIM POLICY 2004- IMPACT

Country's leading industry associations welcomed the Mini-Exim Policy and said it would boost exports, particularly in the service sector.

They, however, pointed out that there was a need for some WTO friendly financial incentives to exporters to compensate for the withdrawal the benefits under the Section 80HHC of the Income-Tax act.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said the Mini-Exim Policy announcements were an important and continuing part of the over all economic agenda of the government and its emphasis on exports.

CII president Anand Mahindra said the steps were aimed at reducing transaction costs and at the same time bringing in transparency in the system.

"These would reduce hassles for exporters in complying with the unnecessary regulations and procedures, and thus will enable industry to focus on marketing, service and product development. CII strongly welcomes these measures," Mahindra said.

According to CII, the import of capital goods and equipment will be an additional benefit to all service sectors, including healthcare.

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) president, YK Modi said the measures announced today would increase the global competitiveness of Indian manufacturing.

According to Assocham, exporters utilising the duty exemption scheme will also be benefited by getting duty free fuel under DRFC scheme. DGFT has specially made several relaxations under EPGC schemes.

"The enhancement of the equity base of ECGC was a particularly welcome step and with the creation of the National Export Insurance Account this would provide assistance to large value project exports from India," CII president added.

Chambers also welcomed the announcement to set up a special scheme by Reserve Bank of India, which will provide special gold cards to credit worthy exporters.

According Assocham, the Exim Policy measures will provide exporters and importers a level playing field and enable them to face the challenges of global competition, as several of these measures will reduce the transaction cost and provide newer opportunities to export or import products.

Assocham also said that India being the largest importer of gold and silver in the world, the country would further be benefited with the availability of cheap gold and silver as the imports have further been liberalised.

Ravi Wig, president, PHDCCI said that initiatives such as introduction of e-governance, digital signature, electronic fund transfer and message exchange, will greatly help in reducing transaction costs and will facilitate exports.