Anand Sharma likely to announce sops for exporters next week

NEW DELHI: In what could be a Diwali gift for exporters, the government is expected to announce sops, including interest subsidy, to cushion them from the slowdown in western markets.

"There will be some new incentives for some labour intensive sectors like leather," an official said.

Most likely, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma will announce the incentives on October 13, after the meeting of high-level Board of Trade, which is scheduled on October 11, the official added.

"Incentives could be shuffled among different sectors. Those doing well may have to vacate some sops for the segments which need more support," the official said.

However, the official did not disclose further details. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), an arm of the Commerce Ministry, has convened a meeting of all the export councils tomorrow.

"In the backdrop of uncertain economic conditions in the US and Europe, we will ask for extending the benefits under Focus Product and Focus Market Scheme to markets like China, Indonesia and middle east nations," Federation of Indian Export Organisations (Fieo) President Ramu Deora said.

Deora said labour intensive sectors like agri-commodities, carpets, leather and textile need support.

Sharma has recently said the Finance Ministry has agreed for an interest subvention for the export credit and the Reserve Bank has been asked to notify it soon.

Earlier this year, the government had announced fiscal incentives worth Rs 500 crore to exporters of select products. The sops were given under different schemes like 'Focus Market' and 'Focus Products'.

In the Focus Market Scheme, exporters get duty credit of 3 per cent on the value of consignments. Whereas, under the Focus Product Scheme, the exporters avail duty credit of 5 per cent.

The government had given similar sops worth Rs 600 crore in January 2010.

The government intervened with a stimulus packages when exports plunged after October, 2008, under the impact of global financial woes.

During the April-August period this fiscal, India's exports grew by 54.2 per cent to USD 134.5 billion. However, Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar has said the high export growth rate would not be sustainable due to the uncertain economic conditions in Western markets.