Trade Exhorts Minister for AA Reform with Retrospective Effect

· Minister Notes Steep Fall in Export Credit Utilisation

Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu, presided over a meeting of Government officials and export organizations in New Delhi on 9 January to discuss problems faced by the export sector.

Suresh Prabhu highlighted the declining trend of export credit in recent months and suggested that banks may be asked to encourage flow of credit to the export sector particularly to MSMEs for generating more employment.

The Commerce Minister also urged to make Input Tax Credit (ITC) refund online to ensure that the export refund is seamless and also transparent and accountable.

Representatives of the export sector led by FIEO Chief Ganesh Kumar Gupta highlighted the problems of pre-import under advance authorisation and requested the Commerce Minister to bring the notification deleting the condition with retrospective effect. Suresh Prabhu asked DGFT and Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, to look into it so that genuine exporters are not harassed.

Banking issues like caution listing of exporters, third party/ third country exports and list of items to be traded with Iran were also deliberated and Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, agreed to discuss such issues with banks in the meeting scheduled on22^ndJanuary 2019.

The industry acknowledged the support provided by the Government by extending Interest Equalisation Scheme to merchant exporters which will boost exports of MSME units.