Hoping for better days

The Exim Policy 2002-07 has not addressed the crucial area of trade in services as negotiations are still on under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) forum. "Negotiations on services have started and unless they go through, we cannot take a decision. A special committee set-up by the commerce ministry is working on the issue," Union commerce and industry minister Murasoli Maran said at a press conference following the policy announcement today.

On the status of the import of petroleum products, Maran said the present policy of imports through the State Trading Corporation would continue. "If any changes are necessitated following the dismantling of the administrative pricing mechanism, the ministry concerned (the ministry of petroleum and natural gas) will have to get in touch with us and we will take it up," he said.

Talking about the new initiative of permitting overseas banking units in Special Economic Zones (SEZs), Maran said to begin with, the liberalised norms would apply to domestic banks and would be subject to the Reserve Bank of India clearance. "The move is aimed at helping exporters to access cheaper funds," he said.

On the outlook for exports in the next fiscal, Maran said the assessment would be carried out in May and targets would be announced only after that. "This time the picture is terrible. We already have reduced the growth target from 12 per cent to 3 per cent for the current fiscal and we will be happy if exports are not negative," he said. The progress of trade during the next fiscal would also depend on the global outlook and the state of the Indian economy, he added.

Maran said the administration was concerned about the increase in the accumulated stocks of the Food Corporation of India. In the incentive package, the ministry had proposed transport subsidies for consignments with the aim of lowering transaction costs and negating other infrastructural bottlenecks, he said.

He also called for the unification and simplification of various schemes. "If a value-added tax (VAT) is implemented in all states, things will be simpler," he said. Maran said the existing duty remission and rebate schemes were WTO compliant and were adopted by most other countries.

Maran also said the proposal for granting information technology concessions to SEZ units would be taken up as part of the Finance Bill 2002. On the US safeguard measures initiated against steel imports, Maran said exports to the extent of Rs 100 crore might be affected because of the decision.

Maran said there were about 600 items which still attracted quantitative restrictions on imports. Restrictions on items other than those of national security would be removed in consultation with the ministries concerned, he said.