What are the Important Measures Have Been Taken to Improve the India’s Balance of Payment?

The EXIM Policy has announced two other important measures, viz., Action Plan under the MTES and measure undertaken for diversification of markets for India’s exports.

(i) Action Plan Under Medium Term Export Strategy (MTES):

The Medium Term Export Strategy 2002-07 (MTES) was announced by the Government in January 2002 to provide a stable and conducive environment for exporters. Major feature of the MTES are product identification (220 commodities) and market identification for export focus and indicative sector-wise strategies for identifies potential sectors to, inter alia, remove bottlenecks and increase exports.

(ii) Diversification of Markets:

The EXIM Policy has announce several measures to tap overseas markets for India’s exports and prominent among them are:

1. A programme called Focus Africa has been launched with effect from March 31,2002 to tap the potential for trade with the Sub-Saharan African region.

2. Links with CIS countries are to be revived. In this group, Kazakhastan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Azerbaijan would be given special focus in the first phase.

3. Focus LAC (Latin American Countries) which was launched in November 1997 in order to accelerate India’s trade with Latin American countries has been extended up to March 2003.

Procedural Simplification and Other Measures:

In the last few years, several steps have been taken to simplify the rules and procedures and improve the speed of transactions in the DGFT with the help of information technology.

As a result, all the 32 offices of the DGFT have been fully computerized whereby the exporters can transact all business with the DGFT on-line and 75 per cent of the licence applications are already being filed and processed on-line. The procedural simplifications introduced in the EXIM Policy with a view to reducing transaction time and cost in respect of DGFT and Customs are as follows:

(a) DGFT:

(i) With a view to reducing transaction time and costs in obtaining licences/permission/ certificate from the DGFT, electronic filing and electronic processing of licence application has been introduced. This facility would be available to all exporters.

(ii) A new 8-digit commodity classification for imports has been adopted with effect from April 1,2002. This classification would also be adopted by the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) and DGCI&S shortly and this use of the common classification by DGFT and Customs would eliminate the classification disputes and help reduce transaction costs and time.

(iii) Maximum fee limit for electronic application under various schemes had been reduced.

(iv) Same day licensing has been introduced in all regional offices.

(b) Customs:

(i) Adoption and harmonisation of the 8-digit ITC (HS) code.

(ii) The percentage of physical examination of export cargo has been reduced to less than 10 percent, except for a few sensitive destinations.

(iii) The application for fixation of brand rate of drawback would be finalized within 15 days.