India will hold a national election before May. In response to the continued slowdown in India’s economy and the continued sluggish exports, in order to promote India’s trade growth and maintain the continuity of India’s foreign trade policy during the election, the Minister of Commerce and Industry of India announced on February 26 Announcing the 2009 Interim Supplementary Policy to the National Foreign Trade Policy for 2004-2009. This temporary supplementary policy lowers India’s export target for the 2008/09 fiscal year to US$175 billion from US$200 billion set at the beginning of this fiscal year, and covers 26 new trade facilitation measures.
The 26 new trade facilitation measures mainly involve: providing a total of 3.25 billion rupees (approximately US$65 million) in government financial support to labor-intensive industries such as textiles and leather that have been hit hard by the financial crisis; simplifying duty-free import production for exporters Relevant procedures for raw materials required for export products; include technical textiles and stitching machines in the Focus Market Plan (FPS); increase the import duty-free rate of raw materials for the export of handmade carpets to 5%; relax the scope of goods under the import duty-free plan and allow restrictions Classes of imported goods enjoy the import duty-free plan; a branch of the Indian Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) was added in Srinagar (the capital of the Indian-controlled Kashmir region, SRINAGAR), etc.
