The NDA government’s new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2015-20 was unveiled here on 1 April, focusing on supporting both the manufacturing and services sectors, with a special emphasis on improving the ‘ease of doing business’. The five-year FTP provides a framework for increasing exports of goods and services as well as generation of employment and increasing value addition in the country, in keeping with the “Make in India” vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

For the development of textile sector and boost its exports, the FTP 2015-20 introduces a new scheme “Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS)” for export of specified goods to specified markets.

Under MEIS, handloom, coir, jute products, technical textiles, handmade carpets, other textile and readymade garments have been supported for European Union, US, Canada and Japan. Products supported under MEIS include 396 lines of readymade garments, which are women centric products, i.e. women constitute a majority among workers producing these items.

The scheme replaces 5 different schemes of earlier FTP - Focus Product Scheme, Market Linked Focus Product Scheme, Focus Market Scheme, Agri. Infrastructure Incentive Scrip and VKGUY, for rewarding merchandise exports which had varying conditions (sector specific or actual user only, attached to their use.

There would be no conditionality attached to any scrips issued under MEIS. Duty credit scrips issued under MEIS and the goods imported against these scrips are fully transferable.

For grant of rewards under MEIS, countries have been categorised into 3 groups, with rates of rewards ranging from 2 per cent to 5 per cent. Category A consists of 30 traditional markets — 28 countries of the European Union, Canada and the US. Category B consists of 139 emerging and focus markets – 55 African countries, 45 countries from Latin America and Mexico, 12 CIS countries, 13 West Asian countries and Turkey, 10 Asean countries, Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan. All other 70 markets are placed under category C.

To boost e-commerce exports, goods falling in the category of handloom products, leather footwear, and customised fashion garments, having FOB value up to Rs 25,000 per consignment (finalised using ecommerce platform) shall be eligible for benefits under FTP. Such goods can be exported in manual mode through Foreign Post Offices at New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.