Govt extends duty incentives to boost exports

The government today extended duty incentives to a large number of products, including textiles and electronics, to increase competitiveness of Indian exports and boost shipments.
Under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), the Commerce Ministry has extended the duty benefits to 110 new tariff lines or products and increased rates or country coverage or both for existing 2,228 items.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) today notified the list of the items.
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.
Global support has been extended to products including textile items, pharmaceuticals, project goods, auto components, telecom, computer, electrical, electronics and railway transport equipments. Earlier, benefits to these items were provided to a few countries.

The move is expected to help in improving competitiveness of a large number of exporters and help them tide over the difficult global economic scenario.

Exporters body FIEO said that the move would help in boosting exports, which are in negative zone since December last year.
Contracting for the 10th month in a row, India's merchandise exports dipped 24.33 per cent in September to USD 21.84 billion, mainly due to steep fall in shipments of petroleum products, iron ore, and engineering goods amid tepid global demand.
These duty benefits are part of the allocations increased from Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 21,000 crore for MEIS.

Rewards under MEIS are payable as percentage of realised free-on-board value and the MEIS duty credit scrip can be transferred or used for payment of a number of duties including the basic customs duty.
The new products which have been added under this scheme includes medical instruments, sports goods, value added processed products of natural rubber, chemicals and plastics.
Earlier this month in a stakeholders meeting with Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia, exporters had sought support from the government to boost exports.