Govt offers Rs 500 cr sops to exporters

The government on Tuesday announced incentives worth Rs 450-500 crore (Rs 4-5 billion) to promote exports of over 2,000 items and aggressively tap the big markets of Japan and China.

The burden for providing these sops, which are aimed at sustaining the growth momentum for exports, will be borne by the internal budget of the commerce and industry ministry.

As part of the package, fiscal incentives like duty free entitlements would be provided to more products including auto component, electronics, plastics, machinery and chemicals, and also for exporting goods to Japan and China.

"We hope these (incentives) will give a further boost to exports...will also help in recovery of the sectors which continue to show decline in exports," Sharma said, adding the incentives would come in force retrospectively from January 1.

After remaining in the negative for past thirteen months, India's exports turned positive in November and December following demand recovery in some of the major economies.

The incentives to exporters come at a time when the Finance Ministry has opined against the possibility of providing fresh stimulus and is likely to focus on curbing fiscal deficit during the forthcoming budget.

"Too much of stimulus, when the body is getting healthy, is not good, it can be injurious to health," Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla had recently said. Sharma, however, advocated cautious approach saying "as of now it would be premature to consider withdrawal of stimulus."