New Exim Policy to boost exports

Emboldened by the buoyancy in exports, the government is likely to come out with an Exim Policy that would for the first time have common guidelines for both commodities and services.

Though the thrust of the policy, to be unveiled on March 31, would be within the broad parameters chalked out in the five-year Exim Policy and the medium term export strategy announced last year, this year's Exim Policy would attempt to integrate the incentive for both services and commodities.

Official sources said that with merchandise exports likely to cross the targeted $50 billion and services exports an additional $20-25 billion, the policy would also outline the long-awaited medium term export strategy for services.

With most of the policy announcements for special economic zones in the last year's Exim Policy having been notified, the sources said the work on SEZs is expected to pick up.

But it would be at least three to four years before the first greenfield SEZ could become fully operational and the first one is expected to come up in Maharashtra followed by Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

The sources, however, said the much-touted SEZs at Positra in Gujarat and Nanganery in Tamil Nadu have run into difficulties because of political reasons.

Although foreign direct investment inflows have started looking up and expected to touch over $5 billion this fiscal, the sources said the big ticket FDI inflow could come about only after power sector reforms, particularly the state electricity boards as this is one area which had huge potential for FDI inflow.

The retail sector is another area which had tremendous potential for FDI inflow, the sources said, adding this sector is unlikely to be opened up to foreign investments in the face of stiff resistance from the domestic trading community, bulk of whom were supporters of the ruling BJP party.

Former Commerce and Industry Minister Murasoli Maran, who is now undergoing treatment in the United States, was pushing hard for opening up of retail sector by changing the nomenclature and putting a cap of about 10 to 15 per cent initially on foreign equity besides restricting it to metropolitan cities.

But with the change of guard in the ministry, retail trading is unlikely to get priority while further liberalising FDI policy regime, source said.

Making a deviation from the past practice, the sources said the notifications of the proposals in the policy would be made simultaneously on March 31 in the face of several complaints about he delay in the issue of notifications, which at times took more than a year.