FIEO expects budget to add to competitiveness of exports for job creation

January 31, 2018: Reacting to the global trade development in the Economic Survey, which projects 4 percent growth in global trade in 2018, FIEO President GK Gupta said that such growth augur well for Indian exports as they have always been either above the curve or below the curve. Whenever, global trade has done well, Indian exports have posted much encouraging results.

However, the budget should look into the challenges faced by the export sector including loss of competitiveness of labour-intensive sectors, constant appreciation of Indian Rupee, less than flexible labour laws, need of skilling and improvement in logistics and infrastructure.

The chief said that the Economic Survey has rightly recognized that embedded taxes arising from products left outside GST (petroleum and electricity) and those that arise from inverted duty structure with nil duty on the final product, needs to be compensated and Union Budget should announce a policy decision for factoring them through Duty Drawback route.

Gupta said that the focus of the Union Budget should be on job creation including in export sector thereby providing fiscal support to employment-intensive sectors in exports.

The expenditure incurred by the industry on imparting skills or on overseas marketing may be provided tax deduction at 100 percent.

The legal issues requiring amendment in GST Law including an exemption from IGST on imports/inputs required for exports, a comprehensive drawback scheme for MSME to provide refund of GST and Customs Duty, procedural changes to allow GST refund at let export order, etc. needs to be addressed through the Budget/Finance Bill.

With a view to double farmers’ income, the Budget should allocate substantial fund for backward and forward linkages in agriculture including in cold chains and warehouses so that we build on a stable Agri Policy, likely to be announced soon, added Gupta.