Govt To Extend RoTDEP Sops To Ecommerce Exports: Piyush Goyal

Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday (December 28) announced the extension of incentives under the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme for ecommerce exports. 

“The government will be extending RoDTEP benefits for exports through ecommerce,” said Goyal while addressing an event organised by the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).

He added that the incentives will be notified by the DGFT in the next few weeks. 

The scheme offers refunds on taxes, duties and levies incurred by exporters during the manufacturing and distribution of goods, which are largely not reimbursed under any other mechanism at the central, state, or the local level.

An official also said that the union commerce ministry would soon institute the necessary IT framework and other enablers for the extension of the scheme for the exporters.

The move is expected to boost ecommerce exports as well as offer incentives and sops to homegrown micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to facilitate the government’s target of $1 Tn worth of merchandise exports by 2030.

During the event, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was also signed between the DGFT and logistics startup Shiprocket for ‘holding capacity building and handholding sessions’ under the DGFT’s ecommerce outreach programme. 

Speaking about the upcoming ecommerce policy, Goyal said that the proposed rules are at the final stages of discussion. He added that the government is hopeful of bringing out the policy very soon.

The RoDTEP sops come at a time when the DGFT and the Centre have taken a slew of steps to spur ecommerce exports in the country. In November, the government said the foreign trade agency was working with the Department of Revenue to develop an initiative on the lines of ‘composition levy scheme’ to waive GST for smaller MSME players.

The DGFT has also partnered with the Department of Post to strengthen and expand Dak Niryat Kendras and foreign post offices (FPOs) to shore up ecommerce exports. On the global scale, the government is also working with postal services of multiple countries to build a full stack online tracking mechanism for export consignments.

Back home, the DGFT has tied up with ecommerce platform Amazon to pilot an initiative which will train ecommerce exporters in 20 districts. The ecommerce major is also bullish on ecommerce exports out of India and is looking to ramp up the number to $20 Bn by 2025. 

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