In order to boost competitiveness of Indian exports and enhance shipments, the government has extended duty incentives to a large number of products, including textiles and electronics. The Commerce Ministry has extended the duty benefits to 110 new tariff lines or products and increased rates or country coverage or both for existing 2,228 items under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS). The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has notified the list of the items. Under MEIS, the government provides duty benefits at two per cent, three per cent and five per cent depending upon the product and country. The Commerce Ministry has extended global support to products including textile items, pharmaceuticals, project goods, auto components, telecom, computer, electrical, electronics and railway transport equipment. Earlier, benefits to these items were provided for export to a few countries. The move is expected to help in improving competitiveness of a large number of exporters and help them tide over the difficult global economic scenario. These duty benefits are part of the allocations increased from Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 21,000 crore for MEIS. The new products which have been added under this scheme includes medical instruments, sports goods, value added processed products of natural rubber, chemicals and plastics. Welcoming the announcement, Tamil Nadu based spinners’ body, the Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF), said the move would help ease some pressure and boost exports. Now all kind of textile fabrics (cotton fabrics, blended fabrics and also man-made fibres based fabrics) will be eligible for two per cent MEIS benefit for all category of countries (A B and C), ITF secretary Prabhu Damodaran said in a statement. India’s merchandise exports plunged 24.33 per cent in September to $21.84 billion, mainly due to steep fall in shipments of petroleum products, iron ore, and engineering goods amid lukewarm global demand. It was the tenth consecutive contraction of exports.
