Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu, presided over a meeting of Government officials and export organizations in New Delhi today to discuss problems faced by the export sector.

Suresh Prabhu highlighted the declining trend of export credit in recent months and suggested that banks may be asked to encourage flow of credit to the export sector particularly to MSMEs for generating more employment.

The Commerce Minister also urged to makeInput Tax Credit (ITC) refund online to ensure that the export refund is seamless and also transparent and accountable.

Representatives of the export sector highlighted the problems of pre-import under advance authorisation and requested the Commerce Minister to bring the notification deleting the condition with retrospective effect.Suresh Prabhu asked DGFT and Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, to look into it so that genuine exporters are not harassed.

Banking issues like caution listing of exporters, third party/ third country exports and list of items to be traded with Iran were also deliberated and Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, agreed to discuss such issues with banks in the meeting scheduled on 22nd January 2019.

The industry acknowledged the support provided by the Government by extending Interest Equalisation Scheme to merchant exporters which will boost exports of MSME units.

Minister of State for Finance, senior officers from Finance, Revenue, DGFT and Department of Commerce and representatives of Federation of Indian Export Organisations,Pharmexcil, Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, Engineering Exports Promotion Council and Chemexcil were present in the meeting.

Input Tax Credit refund online to ensure seamless, transparent export refunds and reduce exporter harassment. Discussion directed banks to increase export credit, particularly for MSMEs, and identified banking compliance issues including caution listing, third party exports, and trade with sanctioned jurisdictions. The Minister ordered Input Tax Credit (ITC) refunds to be made online for seamless, transparent refunding, and requested DGFT and Department of Revenue to consider deleting the pre import condition under advance authorisation to protect genuine exporters. Extension of the Interest Equalisation Scheme to merchant exporters was noted as supportive of MSME exports.