The initial challenges faced by exports sector to be addressed on war-footing: FIEO

Shri Ganesh Kumar Gupta, President, FIEO while addressing the exporters during the Post GST Meet on Export Compliance organised by FIEO at Mumbai on July 13, 2017 said that introduction of GST is a path breaking reform that will only bear fruits in the long run with initial hiccups. He explained that the liquidity problem of the exporters, constraints in job work, delays in initial returns for exports in the months of July and August, procedural issues in LUT/Bond are being flagged by FIEO and he strongly highlight some of them during his meeting with Hon’ble Commerce and Industry Minister last week. He appreciated that Government has considered FIEO’s various request on priority by giving suitable clarifications and nominating Shri Satya Srinivas, JS Customs as nodal point in CBEC and Shri Ajay Srivastava, Jt. DGFT as nodal point in DGFT to answer to the queries of the exporters.

Shri P K Mohanty, Consultant, GST, CBEC, New Delhi said that GST is a great reform undertaken by Team India that will lead to greater transparency and transformation. GST will have a profound and positive effect on society, economy and tax regime and it will change the way we run our businesses and collect taxes. Once the system stabilises life will be better and ease of doing business would be certainly realised. Dedicated efforts have been made by Central and State officials for GST implementation.

Shri Rajiv Jalota, Commissioner, State Tax GST, Maharashtra informed that the Government of Maharashtra has enacted SGST Act, Rules, Notifications on the lines of central legislation and State is geared to meet the challenges of the new regime .

Dr. Ajay Sahai, DG & CEO, FIEO raised the concern that GST will severely dent the liquidity of the exporter in a big way and the compliance cost of merchant exporter may go up. Export competitiveness of India may tank by about 2% and this will be a big blow for the exporters. He appraised that Government is looking into the various options to neutralize the effect under the new GST regime.

Addressing the participants Shri Khalid M Khan, Regional Chairman, FIEO (WR), flagged the issue that while transition input tax credits and inherent benefits of GST would lower costs, higher GST rates for products may spoil sport in some cases. Determination of price and being competitive would be critical for all enterprises especially for price sensitive products. Even MSMEs would work on pricing patterns to remain effective.

The meeting was also addressed by Dr John Joseph, IRS, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone – II; Shri Rajeev Tandon, IRS, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone – I; Dr Sonia Sethi, IAS, Addl. DGFT, Mumbai and Shri Deepak Mata, IRS, Assistant Director, NACIN.