India's exports, which have been in the negative zone since December last year, are soon expected to show improvement in growth because of the incentives announced recently, the government said today.
The exports have been declining because of global demand slowdown, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.
"We have given support under MEIS (Merchandise Export India Scheme). We have also announced the interest subvention scheme. So there should be an improvement on our exports soon," she told reporters here.
The government has recently extended incentives under the MEIS, 3 per cent interest subsidy and enhanced duty drawback rates.
Under MEIS, the government has announced incentives of Rs 3,000 crore to several products, including textiles and electronics. Under the scheme, the government provides duty benefits at 2 per cent, 3 per cent and 5 per cent depending upon the product and country.
The government had also raised duty refund rates on a host of items, including iron, steel, garments and marine products, with a view to promote exports.
India's exports remained in the negative territory for the 11th month in a row by registering a dip of 17.53 per cent in October to USD 21.35 billion due to a demand slowdown, while trade deficit showed an improvement.
"There is a global depression as a result we are suffering," she said.
Exports have contracted due to steep decline in shipments of petroleum products (57 per cent), iron ore (85.5 pc), engineering (11.65 pc) and gems and jewelery (12.84 pc) amid a global demand slump.
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The Commerce and Industry Minister further said that currently there is a one month time lag in releasing of trade data as certain ports are sending the data manually.
"Many ports are yet to be digitised... It (data) has a time lag but sooner we will have the data on a real time basis," Sitharaman said adding that it would also help in decision making process.
The new dashboard will help potential exporters, current exports and importers, export promotion councils and researchers and analysts, she added.
At the moment, the past two year data is available on the dashboard.
DGFT Anup Wadhawan said: "We are attempting to address that time lag and we hope to eventually graduate as all our ports become EDI (electronic data interchange)."
When asked about the report of some hacking into the customs network and misuse of schemes, he said: "Some stray incidents which have been reported and the Icegate authorities are looking into that".
He also said that bulk of India's export and imports are coming through EDI ports.
Talking about the government e-market (GeM) place, Sitharaman said government buyers will benefit from this transparent process.
"Today over 26 items are already on the GeM, we hope that by March 2017, over 100 such commodities which are bought (by government departments) to be done in a transparent manner," she said.
