The Centre announced the long awaited Foreign Trade Policy ( FTP) on Wednesday rolling out schemes to incentivise goods and services exports to key markets.

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also announced measures to promote the use of domestically procured capital goods in line with the Centre's 'Make in India' thrust.

"The focus of the policy is to promote exports of value-added and labour intensive manufacturing as well as services. High-tech exports too will be encouraged," Sitharaman said.

The Government has replaced all existing focus product and focus market schemes for goods with a single 'Merchandise Export from India Scheme'. Under the scheme, incentives will be given for export of specific goods to specific markets.

For services, all schemes have been replaced by a 'Services Export from India Scheme', with a greater thrust on notified services.

Moreover the incentive scripts for duty-free imports to be given under the scheme will be fully transferable. This has been a long-standing demand of the services sector as many sectors do not import and were not able to use the incentives.

In a major decision that would give a boost to Special Economic Zones, the Government has decided to extend both the incentive schemes for export of goods and services to units in SEZs.

The policy, being expected by the industry since last August, is being announced at a time when exports from India are under pressure. Exports in the last three months have declined due to a contraction in global demand and the target of $320 billion for fiscal 2014-15 seems out of reach.

Export during April-February 2014-15 was $286.58 billion, which was just 0.88 per cent higher than that in the same period last year. Imports during the 11-month period were $411.80 billion, which was 0.71 per cent higher than in the previous year.

Source:thehindubusinessline.com