Exporters voice concerns to Arun Jaitley

New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday met with the exporters to understand the issues which are hitting them so as to boost sluggish exports which is one reason for slowing economy.

Exporters wanted resolution of problems arising from implementation of GST. Exporters asked for expeditious refund of duties, deferment of filing of GST returns for six months and expansion of the ambit of the composition scheme. “In absence of clear refund timelines, the new duty drawback rates notified on September 21 have added to the woes of exporting and thus effecting their order book position. It is suggested that the transition period of drawback may be extended beyond September 30 2017 till December 31,” FIEO president Ganesh Gupta said.

“For ease of doing business especially for the MSME, provisional input tax credit period may be extended to 6 months from the current 2 months’ period; this will help cross matching of invoices through the GSTN portal and also save the blockage of the working capital for the small players,” said CII, director general, Chandrajit Banerjee.

He said that for filing of GST return may be made on a quarterly basis, as against the current monthly filing requirement as the MSME sector is still not well equipped with the IT infrastructure and a qualified manpower; this small measure will help bring them into the GST mainstream

FIEO also pressed for exemption from GST for merchant exporters, immediate start of the refund process with exporters facing liquidity issues and allowing export benefit scrips for payment of IGST and CGST. 

“Small exporters are particularly hit with GST as they have to borrow money to pay GST. Availability and the cost of credit is adversely impacting them,” he said. 

The industry representatives also brought up compliance matters on which the finance minister invited suggestions to improve the implementation of GST. 

Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council chairman Praveen-shankar Pandya said the sector is faced with a huge problem as exports are declining. They also demanded exemption from IGST on procurement of precious metals from nominated agencies for the purpose of manufacturing and export of jewellery.