Remission prices and recommendations for export things beneath the new Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme are most likely to notified in 10 days, Ajai Sahai, Director General and CEO, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) told TheSpuzz Online. During the implementation of the scheme on January 1, 2021, the Ministry of Finance had stated that it would “shortly” notify the particulars of export goods (tariff lines) eligible for the scheme, the applicable RoDTEP price, worth caps (wherever applicable) on such eligible goods/tariff lines, the excluded category of exports, other situations and restrictions, and the procedural particulars for grant of RoDTEP duty credit, and utilisation. However, exporters — majority MSMEs dealing with uncertainty even though finalising and negotiating new export orders — have been urging the government given that then for instant notification to issue prices and all round recommendations for executing new orders.
“We are expecting rates to be notified very shortly, in a week to 10-day time or maybe this week only. I have been given to understand that it has come to Commerce (ministry) and the issue has been discussed. I’m pretty hopeful that rates and guidelines will be notified this week or latest in the next 10 days,” Sahai stated.
Comments from Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Amit Yadav had been not straight away readily available to confirm the timeline for notification of prices.
The RoDTEP scheme, which had replaced the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) on January 1, 2021, to increase the worldwide competitiveness of Indian exports, was authorized last year for reimbursement of taxes, duties, and levies at the central, state, and regional level. These had been earlier not refunded but incurred in the procedure of manufacture and distribution of exported goods.
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The scheme was budgeted only Rs 13,000 crore for FY22 — way under its initial estimated annual price of Rs 50,000 crore and also only a third of the Rs 39,097 crore authorized by the government for exporters in FY20 beneath MEIS for lots of sectors, TheSpuzz had reported in March. Last month, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had also informed Rajya Sabha MP Suresh Prabhu that the Department of Commerce and Department of Finance are beneath active consultation for early finalisation of the scheme’s recommendations and prices. The GK Pillai panel was tasked with prices recommendation for the RoDTEP scheme.
With a price range reduce than anticipated, exporters think that RoDTEP prices would be significantly less than the MEIS prices. The incentives beneath MEIS ranged from 2 per cent to 5 per cent of the free of charge-on-board (FOB) worth of exports. “In most of the cases, we should be ready for less than the MEIS rates looking into the budget which has been allocated or unless the government takes a call to not to restrict it with the budget allocation. But if rates are restricted with budget indication, I think we should expect them in most of the cases to be less than MEIS,” added Sahai.
Moreover, Indian exporters have been facing challenges in terms of lack of liquidity amid the Covid pandemic. However, there has been no loss of orders. “Since we have a very good order booking position, the delay in rates notification has not impacted much but it has caused liquidity challenge. Fortunately for India, the orders are constantly flowing and we are still flush with orders. Of course, it has put pressure on liquidity, affected the profitability of exporters as the money which was due to them in January, if it comes in June or July then they would have to borrow for that much of time. So, the profitability of the exporter today is probably at the lowest ebb at this point of time,” stated Sahai. To avail scheme, the exporter has to claim for RoDTEP in the shipping bill by generating a declaration. The claim will be processed by the Customs post export common manifest (EGM) is filed. Further, a scroll with all shipping bills for admissible quantity is generated and made readily available in the user’s account at Indian Customers Electronic Gateway (ICEGATE).