Anand Sharma seeks relief for exporters

Batting for exporters hit hard by global downturn, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma on Monday met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and made out a strong case for fiscal relief for the export sector in the Budget next month.

"This morning there was a meeting between commerce minister and the finance minister and specific proposals have been discussed," new Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar told reporters, adding that a set of proposals from the commerce ministry have been sent to the finance ministry.

Khullar, who has replaced G K Pillai as Commerce Secretary, said issues like revalidation of several incentives would be addressed in the Budget.

He said India's competitors in the export market are giving a lot of incentives. "Rivals are giving incentives to corner larger chunk," he said.

The commerce secretary did not see a fast turnaround in the outlook of exports which have been contracting for the last seven months. "I don't see any major turnaround". However due to the effect of low base, things may start looking up after September-October this fiscal.

Khullar said the Foreign Trade Policy likely in August would deal with concerns over transaction cost. The FTP may not be for a five-year period since the global economy is changing too fast to allow a rigid and fixed tenure for a policy framework, he said.

Khullar said that it is premature to say that things (exports) are going to improve immediately.

The country's merchandise exports barely grew by 3.4 per cent to $168.70 billion last fiscal, hit by drastic decline in the second half of 2008-09 due to the global downturn.

Exporters, hit by demand slowdown in major markets of the United States and Europe, are demanding income-tax holidays for five years, exemption from fringe benefit tax and service tax in the Budget among other things.