Exporters are hoping Finance Minister Arun Jaitley (right) provides financial succour in Budget 2017 to boost the sector. (PTI Photo)
New Delhi: India’s exports have been falling for the last 24 months. Exporters are hoping Finance Minister Arun Jaitley provides financial succour in Budget 2017 to boost the sector, which has been further hit by demonetisation.
RC Ralhan, President of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), the lobby group of Indian exporters, told News18 that the body has presented Jaitley some suggestions that they hope will be incorporated in the budget.
* Formation of an export development fund to be used to market small exporters. The FIEO wanted the corpus to be 0.5% of the value of India’s exports of $260 billion last year. This works out to around Rs 8,000 crore.
* An interest subvention scheme of 3% on bank loans currently available for small manufacturers/exporters to be extended to pure exporters.
* A scheme for providing subsidised credit to exporters is expiring on March 31, 2017. FIEO wants this extended by another year.
India’s exports have been sluggish as a result of a weak global economy. Demonetisation has added to the downturn, though exporters say this is temporary. Exporters have pinned their hopes on Budget 2017 for an uptick in their fortunes.
Source: News18