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Ball in exporters' court now, says Maran

BS Economy Bureau

The world was moving towards regionalism and almost 60 per cent of the world's exports were moving through regional trade blocs, commerce minister Murasoli Maran said today, adding that India was also trying to work out regional trade agreements with countries like Columbia and Egypt in order to boost trade.

Speaking at a national seminar organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry on the new Exim Policy, he said the new policy had freed trade from controls and it was now up to exporters to boost exports.

The policy had simplified a number of procedures and unveiled various incentives for farm exports, industrial clusters and cottage industries, he said.

"The policy aims to boost farm exports. It has been estimated that every 1 per cent switch in terms of the trade in favour of agriculture will result in diversion of about Rs 85 billion for the sector," he added.

The minister said the commerce and finance ministries were in consultation for merging various export incentive schemes such as duty drawback and the duty entitlement passbook scheme. This, however, could only be done when states had a uniform value-added tax, he added.

Responding to demands by the Positra and the Gopalpur special economic zones for increasing the tax holiday in view of their long gestation periods, Maran said he would refer the issue to the finance minister for making a suitable announcement in the Finance Bill, 2002.

He said though having a common law for SEZs was a good idea, implementation would be difficult because it would include items in the State and the Concurrent lists.

Maran said 34 of the 354 industrial clusters in India identified by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation had a revenue earning of over Rs 10 billion.

Besides these, there were more than 2,000 artisan-based small clusters that needed attention, he said.

"We will be focussing on three clusters this year: Ludhiana, Panipat and Tirupur," he said, adding that others would be considered on the basis of the success achieved in these clusters.

Maran also said the government would continue to impose the 25 per cent import duty on natural rubber to protect the interests of rubber farmers in Kerala.

"As of now, the present policy of having an import duty on natural rubber will stay. Whether it stays for a year or more will depend on the situation," he said.

He also said quantitative restrictions on onion exports have not been removed because the government wanted to be careful while freeing the exports of the commodity.

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