Govt provides duty benefits to boost exports

Worried over declining exports, the government has extended duty incentives to several products, including textiles and electronics to boost shipments.
"In light of the major challenges being faced by Indian exporters in the backdrop of the global economic slowdown, Department of Commerce today announced increased support for export of various products and included some additional items under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS)," the the Commerce Ministry said in a statement.
The current revision introduces 110 new tariff lines (products) and increases rates or country coverage or both for 2,228 existing tariff lines, it said.
Under the MEIS, 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.

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.
New products that have been added under this scheme includes medical instruments, sports goods, value added processed products of natural rubber, chemicals and plastics.