Exporters to get Diwali gift, interest subsidy on cards

Government is working to announce a Diwali gift for exporters in the form of sops, including interest subsidy to cushion them from slowdown in the western markets.

"After sectoral reviews, we will be announcing the incentives. You can expect definitely by the end of October or first week of November," Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said after presiding over a meeting of an industry-government task force on ways to revive the business confidence.

He said the Finance Ministry has agreed for an interest subvention for the export credit and the Reserve Bank has been asked to notifiy it soon.It may be 2-3%, sources said.

Concerned over slowdown, lack of investment and rising cost of credit, Sharma agreed with the industry leaders that there should be a roll-back of the interest rates.

The RBI has been tightening the monetary policy to fight inflation and has increased the benchmark short-term interest rates by over 3.50 percentage points since March 2010.

"In my view, there has to be a rollback when it comes to cost of credit for the manufacturing industry. I have raised the issue with the Finance Minister. The cost of credit is making the Indian manufacturing expensive and globally uncompetitive. It would also affect in the long run our exports. These concerns have been fully registered," he said.

Asked about reforms in the FDI policies, Sharma said the overseas investment in education sector is being delinked from real-estate. It will be announced in the new policy circular tomorrow.

However, on much-awaited FDI in multi-brand retail, the minister gave no assurance except saying, "we will take the steps which are correct and appropriate".