The principal objectives of the policy are as follows: (i) To accelerate the country's transition to a globally oriented vibrant economy with a view to deriving maximum benefits from expanding global market opportunities (ii) To stimulate sustained economic growth by providing access to essential raw materials, intermediates, components, consumables and capital goods required for augmenting production.
(iii) To enhance the technological strength and efficiency of Indian agriculture, industry and services, thereby improving their competitive strength while generating new employment opportunities, and to encourage the attainment of internationally accepted standards of quality. (iv) To provide consumers' with good quality products at reasonable prices.
Practical implications are interesting. From a condition where all imports were restricted the present policy says exports and imports are free unless specifically said. There were 1,429 items which were subject to quantitative restrictions. The new Exim policy has taken away 714 times from this list and is seen by many as the last step towards phasing out all quantitative restrictions.
For an average Indian this was unimaginable few years back. Now the freely importable list includes watches, telephones, microwave ovens, audio players, coffee-makers, toothbrushes, a number of apparels like blazers, track suits, gloves, overcoats, food items like cheese and other dairy products, and kitchen and household fittings.
Many items in the new list will have a peak import duty of 35 per cent. This is much above the duty levels in China and Asean countries, but is significantly lower than what it used to be in India.
The Exim polixy also announced the introduction of Green Card to exporters. Manufacturer exporter exporting more than 50% of their production with turnover over Rs.10 million and service providers rendering services in free foreign exchange for more than 50% of their services turnover with value above Rs.3.5 million in free foreign exchange will be issued a green card by Directorate General of Foreign Trade. This card will entitle the holder to the following facilities: automatic licensing, automatic customs clearance for Exports, automatic Customs clearance for Imports related to exports and LUT facility for duty free imports.
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