Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said more support will be provided to exporters to give a boost to overseas shipments.
“The duty drawback scheme has been widened and deepened to include more products and countries. The government will continue to take measures to support the export sector,” Jaitley said in his Budget speech for 2016-17.
Under the scheme, the government refunds duties on imported inputs for export items.
Exports dipped for the 14th month in a row, down 13.6 per cent in January to $21 billion due to a fall in shipments of petroleum and engineering goods, although the trade deficit showed improvement.
Imports shrank 11 per cent to $28.71 billion last month, resulting in a trade deficit of $7.63 billion, the lowest in 11 months. In February last year, the deficit was $6.85 billion.
For the first 10 months of the current fiscal, cumulative exports declined by 17.65 per cent to $217.67 billion, as against $264.32 billion in April-January of 2014-15.