New Foreign Trade Policy

Context: 

The Commerce, Industry and Textiles Minister has introduced a new foreign trade policy that reduces costs for small firms, improves clearance processes, and offers a one-time amnesty scheme for export obligation defaults. 

• The policy no longer provides incentives to exporters.

Image Source: The Hindu

Highlights of the policy

• Dynamic updating of policy: 
  • The new policy will have no sunset date and will be tweaked based on the emerging world trade scenario and industry feedback. 
  • While the policy will be open ended, the schemes sanctioned under it will be time bound. 

• Amnesty scheme for one-time settlement of default in export obligation: 

• • An online portal will be launched for registration and a six-month window will be available to exporters to avail the scheme. 
  • It will cover all pending cases of default in export obligation of authorisations – these can be regularised on payment of all customs duties exempted in proportion to unfulfilled export obligation.

• Export target: 
  • The new policy kicks in from 2023-24 and aims to almost triple India’s goods and services exports to $2 trillion by 2030, from an estimated $760 billion in 2022­-23.
• Continuity in schemes: Schemes of duty exemption such as advance authorisation, Duty Free Import Authorization (DFIA) will continue. 
• Towns of export excellence: Four new towns of export excellence — Faridabad for apparel, Moradabad for handicrafts, Mirzapur for handmade carpets and Varanasi for handloom and handicraft — have been declared.

• E­-commerce export hubs:  It extends all export benefits to e-commerce overseas shipments, which it targets to grow to $200-­300 billion annually by 2030, and plans to create hubs for such exports with designated zones for warehousing.

• • The hubs would also include a processing facility for last mile activities like labelling, testing and repackaging, as per the policy.

Source: The Hindu