The government has said that the efficacy of a slew of initiatives under the new Foreign Trade Policy is reflected in the fact that the annual trade data indicates that the share of the manufacturing sector in India's total exports has increased from 64 per cent in 2014-15 to more than 69 per cent in 2015-16.
The analysis carried out by DGCIS shows that important sectors like cotton yarn/fabrics/made-ups and handloom products, RMG of all textiles among others, have recorded significant increase in 2015-16 over 2014-15.
In response to questions raised by the exporters on the major initiatives taken by Directorate General of Foreign Trade/ Department of Commerce to promote trade and improve Ease of Doing Business, DGFT's Director General Anup Wadhwan briefly summarized the major initiatives relating to policy simplification, reducing cost of capital through interest subvention, document reduction, IT initiatives like online filing of applications, creation of trade portal and training and outreach activities.
Wadhwan said the New FTP consolidated 5 different schemes for rewarding merchandise exports under the earlier policy into a single scheme, namely Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) which was introduced on April 1, 2015.
The government also accepted the request of exporters to do away with Landing Certificates and approved extending MEIS benefits for the already notified products to all countries, which was implemented from May 4, 2016. This afforded dual benefit for most exporters as not only the landing certificate was dispensed with, the MEIS benefits were also extended to cover all countries.
He also pointed out that the Interest Equalization Scheme notified by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on December 4, 2015, reduces cost of capital by allowing 3 per cent interest equalization on Pre and Post Shipment Rupee Export Credit to eligible exporters. The scheme addresses the problem of high interest rates that the exporters had to pay. All products manufactured and exported by SME are eligible under the scheme
Additionally, for ease of doing business, the number of mandatory documents required for exports and imports have been reduced to 3 each. Earlier, 7 documents were required for exports and 10 for imports.
A major simplification was carried out for the first time exporters who are required to obtain Import Export Code.
DGFT did away with the issuance of physical copy of IEC and introduced IEC wef Apr1, 2016. The application, processing and issuance was completely made online where no physical application was required to be submitted.
Source : fibre2fashion.com