New scheme to manufacture machinery for trimmings in works, says Industry Minister Goyal

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday asked industry to use the revenue department’s Manufacture and Other Operations under Warehouse Rules (MOOWR) scheme to duty-free import products for the purpose of re-export as it is a “pretty practical, neat, simple solution to the problem that sometimes small exporters particularly face”.

At an export award event, he also said the government is trying to devise a new scheme to support domestic manufacturing of machinery to produce trimmings, embellishments and other accessories.

Goyal said that the MOOWR scheme will make business more competitive in the exports market as exporters won't be required to have an advance authorization or license for every single product that they import for the purpose of re-export.


“We will take up for consideration your concern on import duty on leather goods…
Irrespective of our ability to remove the import duty on that, I would urge you to use the MOOWR scheme of department of revenue,” he said at an event organised by the Council for Leather Exports.

The minister said that many products in the leather industry continue to come from other geographies and the BIS certification can be converted into a quality control order.

Goyal said that the government is trying to work for more free trade agreements (FTA) with developed, high spending and high per capita income nations

“I urge you all to look at new destinations to export and look at newer products that we can even produce in India for import substitution,” he said.

“We can stop substandard low quality goods coming into India and ensure that you get a level playing field against countries which don't have transparent or have opaque pricing or quality standards,” Goyal told industry, adding that the government is open to amending any standards that hurt them.

The minister said that he has not allowed online certification from BIS as yet as it “helps me to ensure that you don't get unfair competition and helps you to get an edge up against such geographies who don't have transparent trading practices”.

On India’s exports, he said he hopes to look at a “significant ramp up collectively this year” from the $676 billion of goods and services exports last year “despite the very challenging times we all are facing”.

Europe, he said, is in quite a stressed situation and that the developed world, which are large users of leather goods particularly a lot of this being discretionary spending, are seeing inflation, problems in the marketplace and consumer spending is down.

“As we move to a $20,000 per capita economy or $35 trillion economy in the next 25 years, we hope to see leather industry contribute to it,” he said, adding that leather exports to the UAE rose 64% in November indicating that large parts of Europe and Africa can be served from there.