Open House with
Dr. Christy Fernandez at Mumbai
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Mr. S K Saraf, Chairman, (FIEO-WR) (4th from left) addressing the meet. On Mr. Saraf’s left are the Chief Guest Dr. Christy Fernandez, Spl. Secretary, MOC & Acting DGFT; Mr. Ganesh Kumar Gupta, President, FIEO; Mr. Shyam Agrawal, Addl. DGFT; Mr. S.S. Sandhu, Zonal Jt. DGFT; Mr. Hari Om Tiwari, Chief Commissioner, Central Excise. On Mr. Saraf’s right are Mr. Ramu S Deora, Past President, FIEO; Mr. N. Sasidharan, Chief Commissioner of Customs; and Mr. Ajay Sahai, DG, FIEO. |
Ahead of the scheduled announcement of Annual Supplement to Foreign Trade Policy, the Western Region office of FIEO organized an Open House with the Special Secretary, Ministry of Commerce & Industries and acting Director General of Foreign Trade, Dr. Christy Fernandez, on 31st March at Mumbai. Besides a huge number of exporters from the region, senior officials like Mr. N Sasidharan, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mr. Hari Om Tiwari, Chief Commissioner of Central Excise, Mr. Shyam Agrawal, Addl. DGFT and Mr. S S Sandhu, Zonal Jt. DGFT, Mumbai also joined the open house.
While welcoming the participants, FIEO’s Western Region Chairman Mr. S K Saraf focused three main issues currently affecting the exporting community and sought them redressed under new policy announcements. Firstly, he said that 100% EOUs were allowed to debond by obtaining EPCG Licence. Also under the provision of para 6.15(b), they are allowed to sell obsolete and surplus capital goods on payment of applicable duty. The applicable duty is the duty payable by the importer while importing under licensing condition. Against EPCG licence the rate of duty will be as applicable subject to fulfillment of export obligation. However, it is not very clear as to whether the EOUs can sell the surplus capital goods to another EPCG licence holder on payment of 5% duty. He had sought a clarification in this regard about three months ago, but till date there is no clarification from the DGFT.
Secondly, he specified that the Target Plus scheme was almost unusable in view of the new conditionalities attached to it. He suggested that broadband nexus should be allowed under the Scheme as in the case with Actual User License.
Lastly, he informed that the office of the Zonal Jt. DGFT was asking for documents as old as 10 years for fulfilling its own audit requirements. He suggested that as there were no such provisions in the past requiring exporters to maintain such old documents, it was now virtually impossible for them to dig out these documents. He suggested that the DGFT office should take a practical view of the situation and exporters should be allowed to submit affidavits against the missing documents.
FIEO President Mr. Ganesh Kumar Gupta during his address thanked the DGFT for extending the last date for filing application under Focus Market & Focus Product Schemes by one year, i.e. from 31 March 2007 to 31 March 2008, at the same time, he expressed unhappiness over persisting bottlenecks such as infrastructure problems, imposition of service tax, etc. and hoped that the government would soon evolve a mechanism to compensate the exporters by excluding tax components from exports.
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Mr. Gupta welcomed the Anwar-ul-Hoda Committee recommendation for continuing the DEPB Scheme till 31st March 2008 and suggested that all existing schemes under the current Five-Year Trade Policy, including DFIA scheme, should be allowed to continue till the end of the Policy, and reviewed if necessary only after 2009. Finally, FIEO Chief pointed out that retrospective amendments were causing serious confusions in the trade as experienced in the cases of sudden withdrawal of incentives under Target Plus and amendment to Section 80HHC of the Income Tax Act. |
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A view of the participants. |
Dr. Christy Fernandez assured that the genuine grievances of the exporters would be attended on priority basis and would be considered while finalizing the Policy Supplement. He requested the Additional DGFT
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present in the meeting to send acknowledgements to the exporters sending any suggestions so that at least they know the status of their requests. On the other hand, Dr. Fernandez said in view of rapid growth achieved by the export sector in recent years, it was time to set an ambitious export target for the current year and sought a more serious involvement of state governments for realizing it. FIEO Director General Mr. Ajay Sahai while concluding the ceremony assured that the Federation would make all efforts towards realizing any ambitious target set by the Government. |
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Mr. Ganesh Kumar Gupta (extreme right) presenting a bouquet to the Chief Guest Dr. Christy Fernandez. At extreme left is Mr. Ramu S Deora. |
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Healthcare Tourism: Opportunities for India According to India Brand Equity Fund (IBEF) estimates, the medical tourism market in India is worth over US$ 300 million. The number of medical tourists visiting India has increased multi-fold, from a level of 10,000 patients about five years ago to about 100,000 per annum currently. A study by CII-McKinsey has forecast the healthcare delivery market size to reach around US$ 45 billion by 2012, and given the growth potential of this sector, the estimated revenue from medical tourism is likely to cross US$ 2 billion in India by 2012. Indian healthcare delivery market is estimated at around US$ 20 billion. Private sector players dominate more than two-thirds of the healthcare services market in India. Private healthcare services may account for around 75% of total spending by 2012. India offers a unique basket of healthcare services that is difficult to match by other countries. Apart from the international tourists visiting India for the urgent or elective medical procedures, the number of tourists visiting India for reasons associated with wellness and healthcare is also increasing. Although there are no estimates related to the tourist traffic of this segment, or the estimated revenue generated by this sector, it is expected that this segment of healthcare tourism also has greater potential considering the growing acceptance of Indian systems of therapies, such as Ayurveda, and healing practices such as Yoga.
Other associated services to the growing healthcare sector would be emergency of healthcare BPO, the activities of which include medical billing, disease coding, forms processing and claims settlements. Telemedicine, a method by which patients can be treated even when the doctor is geographically placed in another area, could be another area highlighting the business potential for India. In order to stimulate market development in the healthcare sector through private participation, infrastructure status has been conferred to the healthcare industry. In addition, there are also other fiscal incentives such as lower import duty, depreciation allowance, and income tax holiday for five years. Major states promoting healthcare tourism include Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. Other States are also planning to tap the increasing potential of wellness tourism. India has separate National Health Policy and Tourism Policy but no separate healthcare tourism policy. It needs one. (Source: Indo-China Newsletter, Jan 2007, published by Exim Bank of India) |
