The Government has been taking several initiatives to improve the global competitiveness of the manufacturing sector, particularly textiles, the second largest employment provider of the nation, next only to agriculture. The mid-term review of the foreign trade policy 2015-2020, just released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has given thrust to ease of doing business, ease of trading across borders, exploring new export markets, new export products, simplification of procedures and processes and setting up of the National Trade Facilitation Committee (NTFCs) headed by the Cabinet Secretary to boost exports.
In a press release, Mr. P. Nataraj, SIMA Chairman, has stated that the uniform tax rates and practices after the implementation of GST across States have led to considerable reduction in the logistics and transaction cost for exporters. He has appreciated the formation of NTFC under the Cabinet Secretary to focus on transparency, technology, simplification of procedures, infrastructure augmentation, etc. Further, 24 x 7 customs clearance extended to 19 sea ports and 17 air cargo complexes would help exporters in a big way.
Mr. Nataraj has further stated that the Government is yet to consider the long-pending demand of including cotton yarn exports under the MEIS and IES schemes and also to consider fabric exports under RoSL that are essential to utilize the highly capital and labour-intensive surplus production capacities in the spinning, weaving, knitting and processing segments. The Government could have considered the industry demand for GST-free domestic procurement against EPCG and the Advance Authorization Scheme to boost exports under the mid-term review.
However, he has expressed optimism that the Government would soon announce the enhanced duty drawback rates for all textiles taking into account all the embedded / blocked levies and enable exporters to continue to have the level of export competitiveness that they had in the pre-GST era.