The commerce ministry seems eager to help exporters in many small ways, while the Reserve Bank of India seems to be doing the opposite.
Last week, the commerce ministry enhanced the threshold limit for eligibility under the Market Development Assistance Scheme from Rs 15 crore to Rs 30 crore from June 1, 2013, thus enabling more exporters to take advantage of the scheme.
For participation in trade fairs and exhibitions, they will now get up to Rs 2,50,000 (instead of earlier Rs 1,80,000) - in Latin American countries and Rs 2,00,000 - (instead of Rs 1,50,000) in select African, CIS and Asian Australia and New Zealand and Rs 1,50,000 - (instead of Rs 80,000) in other countries. Reimbursements to the Export Promotion Councils have been enhanced. higher ceiling of Rs 40 lakh for international exhibitions for more than 75 members would encourage these organisations to provide exposure to Indian exporters on a large basis, says Rafeeque Ahmed, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations.
Earlier, the commerce ministry amended the grievance procedure allowing the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) to grant personal hearing and decide cases, where an importer or exporter is not satisfied with the decision of Policy Relaxation Committee (PRC) or a decision/order by any authority sub-ordinate to him. The notification no. 8 dated April 22, 2013, says that the opportunity for personal hearing will not apply to a decision/order made in any proceeding, including an adjudication proceeding, whether at the original stage or at the appellate stage, under the relevant provisions of Foreign Trade (Development & Regulations) Act, 1992. It will apply to cases where a request for review before the said committee or authority has been filed, the committee or authority has considered the request for a review, the exporter/ importer continues to be aggrieved and makes a specific request for personal hearing. The office of DGFT has seven norms committees and eight other committees that meet regularly to decide a number of issues, including relaxation of policy or procedures, policy interpretation, etc. Exporters and importers used to feel helpless if the committees rejected their cases. Now, they have an option to go before the DGFT and explain their case, in person.
The DGFT has called for suggestions from the trade to identify reasons for high transaction cost in exports, to identify areas where Indian exporters face administrative impediments that lead to increase in transaction cost, compare procedural complexities in exports between India and its major competitors and suggest guidelines/steps for removal of procedural complexities drawing from the global best practices and to move towards transparent and increasingly paperless processing through digital platform. These will be considered by the Second Task Force on Transaction Cost that has been constituted under the chairmanship of DGFT in pursuance of the announcement made by commerce minister on April 18, 2013.
The DGFT has also called for feedback/suggestion on the draft Appendix 37 A (VKGUY) and Appendix 37 D (FPS and MLFPS) that have been prepared after alignment of the item description with ITC (HS) Codes.
The Reserve Bank, for no good reason, has cut the time limit for realisation of export proceeds from 12 months to 9 months. This move is unlikely to help RBI, as exporters who can't get their export proceeds within 9 months will seek extension in the time limit. It will only increase unnecessary paper work for exporters.
Source:-www.business-standard.com
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