Niti Aayog to review export SOPs amid evolving global trade order

New Delhi: In the wake of changing global trade dynamics as well as many recent and upcoming free trade agreements (FTAs), the government is looking at evaluating its two key export support schemes in order to assess their effectiveness in sustaining export competitiveness and likely implications for exports, employment and industry if the schemes are withdrawn.

Read more: US, UK, China drive India's engineering goods exports in August

According to a senior government official told ET that government think-tank Niti Aayog will soon start evaluation of the Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (RoSCTL) and Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) schemes, which have been in vogue since 2019 and 2021, respectively.


Positive, negative aspects

The plan is also to critically examine the positive and negative impacts of these schemes on domestic demand, supply as well as prices of the goods covered under each scheme, the person added.

The RoSCTL is a remission-based export support scheme for the apparel and made-ups sector.

Read more: Mexico, Brazil, UK see rising medical device imports, opening export opportunities for India: Report

The RoDTEP scheme, meanwhile, is a World Trade Organization-compatible remission-based mechanism for refund of taxes and duties not refunded under any other existing mechanism.

Economic and Sectoral Impacts

According to the official, emerging external challenges, including global demand fluctuations, cost pressures, evolving global trade rules, sustainability requirements, supply-chain reorganisation and digitalisation of trade processes, necessitate the evaluation of the export-support schemes.

The idea is to benchmark the two schemes against international mechanisms adopted by other countries for neutralising embedded taxes and levies, ensuring zero-rating of exports and strengthening export competitiveness. "Based on the evaluation, a decision would be taken to tweak the schemes or replace them with a new one," the official said.

The analysis would also include economic and sectoral impacts of the schemes on investment, employment generation, production cost, productivity, input-use efficiency, value addition, export pricing, profitability, capacity utilisation and growth across covered sectors.