New Duty Refund (RoDTEP) Scheme Due this Week, Commerce Ministry Plans to Increase Exports Ahead

The Central government's announcement on the new duty refund scheme for exporters, Refund of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) is due this week and will unfold right after a green flag from the Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, according to TOI.

The said scheme intends to replace incentives that are not compliant with the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Exporters have been waiting to get their dues paid for the last eight months while the scheme was only implemented in January this year. A clearance from Commerce Ministry would partly quench their long overdue question on fund requirements.

Government sources recently said that these refunds could come handy at a time when cost of fuel and freight are soaring globally while also affecting domestic price structure.

As higher budgetary has been allocated by commerce and finance ministries for the scheme to cover all products, some paperwork is yet to be processed. Allocation was increased from Rs 13, 000 crore to Rs 17, 000 crore.

The commerce ministry is aiming at $419 billion of exports and for that a detailed analysis has been carried out and the target was disaggregated at the level of country, commodity, region, and states across 31 commodity groups.

A similar scheme- Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (RoSCTL) was rolled out last week letting textile exporters get tax rebate on central and state tax till March 2024.

Government owes roughly Rs 28,000 crores to the exporters just from three schemes namely- RoDTEP, RoSCTL and payments from the now defunct Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS).

Over and above the aforementioned amount the exporters are owed, they've been complaining of the tax refunds from earlier schemes (MEIS and SEIS- Service Exports from India Scheme) that were abandoned after the US dragged India to WTO over non-compliance with global trade rules.

"We have actually laid down a roadmap on how we hit $500 billion in merchandise exports and when we hit a trillion-dollar exports. Our guess is that, by 2027-28, very very modest estimates, we should touch $1 trillion figure in exports of merchandise," Commerce Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam said at the CII's Annual Meeting 2021.

Plans for a market intelligence network for exporters as well as simplification for special economic zones are also underway to increase overall exports.