The commerce ministry is pitching for tax breaks for exporters in the Union Budget, as a measure to enable the distressed export units compete in a recession-hit global market.
In its recommendations to the finance ministry, the commerce ministry has made a strong case for helping exports, particularly in the labour-intensive sectors like leather, textile and handicrafts.
"We are faced with an extraordinary situation which calls for significant measures to keep manufacturing robust and ensure that exports remain globally competitive," commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma told PTI.
Sharma said exporters' concerns would be addressed in the Budget as also through the Foreign Trade Policy in August.
India's merchandise exports, faced with demand decline in the US and Europe, have been shrinking for the last eight months in a row. Overseas shipments dropped by over 33 per cent, the worst in 14 years, in April and over 30 per cent in May.
"We will be able to sustain $168 billion (worth exports) this fiscal, even when global trade is shrinking," Sharma said.
The commerce and industry minister is leaving for Bali, Indonesia, where he will meet trade ministers of key WTO members like the US, Brazil, South Africa, Australia on the sidelines of the meeting of the Cairns group of 19 farm-products exporting countries.
The Bali meeting would help the new commerce minister to develop first point of contact with his counterparts of the key nations like the US.
The ministers will try and narrow the gaps between developing and developed countries on protracted Doha Round of WTO negotiations for reaching multilateral trade agreement.
Sharma said the commerce ministry has suggested to the finance ministry a relief package for the plantation sector.
Growers of plantation crops like coffee are reeling under a heavy debt burden.
Optimistic about the economic recovery starting from September, the commerce and industry minister said, "already there are clear signs of turnaround in some core sectors like cement and steel".
