Topics Covered: Effects of liberalization on the economy, changes in industrial policy and their effects on industrial growth.
Centre likely to extend foreign trade policy:
Context:
The government is expected to further extend the existing foreign trade policy, which is scheduled to lapse from April 1 this year, for a few more months.
- On March 31, 2020, the Centre had extended the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20 for one year till March 31, 2021, amid the pandemic and lockdown.
Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2015-20:
- FTP 2015-20 provides a framework for increasing exports of goods and services as well as generation of employment and increasing value addition in the country, in line with the ‘Make in India’ programme.
- FTP 2015-20 introduces two new schemes, namely ‘Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS)’ for export of specified goods to specified markets and ‘Services Exports from India Scheme (SEIS)’ for increasing exports of notified services.
- Duty credit scrips issued under MEIS and SEIS and the goods imported against these scrips are fully transferable.
- Specific Export Obligation under Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme, in case capital goods are procured from indigenous manufacturers, has been reduced to 75% of the normal export obligation, in order to promote domestic capital goods manufacturing industry.
InstaLinks:
Prelims Link:
- Overview of FTP 2015- 2020.
- What are duty credit scrips?
- About EPCG scheme.
- About MEIS.
- About SEIS.
Mains Link:
Discuss the need for Foreign Trade Policy.
Sources: the Hindu.
