Commerce Ministry to coincide mid-term review of FTP with GST roll-out

Union Commerce and Industry Ministry is trying to coincide the mid-term review of the Foreign Trade Policy (2015-20) to coincide with the roll-out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and it is aligning the existing schemes in the policy with the upcoming indirect tax regime, officials said here on Wednesday.

"We are trying Foreign Trade Policy review to coincide with the launch of GST. In any case the review of Foreign Trade Policy was due. We have experience of two and a half years.

"In order to calibrate the schemes and also to see they are delivered in the regime of GST, we will be notifying the mid-term review of the FTP," Commerce and Industry Secretary Rita Teaotia said.

The ministry has been continuously tweaking the schemes to help exporters, she said in an interactive session with members of Federation of Indian Export Organisations - FIEO, Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC India) and Gem and Jewellery EPC (GJEPC).

Director General of Foreign Trade, A.K. Bhalla also said some of the schemes would not be relevant in the GST regime.

"The schemes like Advance Authorisation, EPCG scheme will stop providing benefits. We are aligning the schemes with GST. We have preponed the mid-term review to end June as it was due in September. We are in consultation with stakeholders. We have understood the problem of exporters," he said.

An Advance Authorisation is issued to allow duty free import of inputs, which are physically incorporated in export product while EPCG scheme is one of the export promotion schemes.

Bhalla said exporters were raising the problem of working capital in the new indirect tax regime as they used to get duty free raw materials.

--IANS

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