Incentives To Exporters Before Diwali: Anand Sharma.

New Delhi, Sep 29 (IANS) Exporters could be in for a windfall this Diwali as the government is set to announce incentives for the sector, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma Thursday said in a meeting with top corporates.

“After sectoral reviews, we will be announcing the incentives you can expect definitely by the end of October or first week of November,” Sharma said after chairing the first meeting of the government-industry task force here.

Sharma added that the finance ministry had already agreed to provide an interest rate subvention to exporters adding that he is going to undertake a high-level consultation with export promotion councils and will be announcing incentives for the current financial year before Diwali.

India’s exports increased by 44.2 percent to $24.3 billion in August, while the cumulative value of exports for the April-August period rose 54.2 percent at $134.5 billion.

The task force, headed by the Commerce Minister was formed for ensuring regular dialogue between industry and government to build a conducive environment for growth.

The corporate honchos led by Harsh Pati Singhania, Rajan Bharti Mittal, Sanjay Kirloskar and Venu Srinivasan and FICCI secretary general Rajiv Kumar in the meeting asked the minister to intervene and tell the Reserve Bank of India to hold off another rate hike.

They also said that industry was facing problems pertaining to environment clearances, land acquisition and availability of input commodities like coal.

The minister assured the task force that another big-ticket policy initiative, the national manufacturing policy will soon be notified as the a group of ministers was working on “ironing out of minor differences”.

After the meeting, Sharma also said that the government has decided to remove limitations of compulsory lock-in-period, minimum build up area for allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in the construction of old age homes and educational institutions.

“There is a huge deficit of educational infrastructure in the country and there is a need to attract foreign investments for creating world class infrastructure in the education sector” Sharma said.

India has already seen a 43 percent increase in FDI in the first seven months of 2011 at $17.83 billion.

Source : thaindian.com