The Council for Leather Exports (CLE), the promotional body for leather industry, has demanded that it be allowed import of second-hand capital goods under Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme, as this facility was removed in the annual supplement 2013-14 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2009-14 announced on April 18, 2013.
The industry sought enhancement of duty credit scrip under focus product scheme for non-leather/synthetic footwear from 2% to 4%. The other demands include enhancing the duty free limit under Duty Free Import Scheme (DFIS) from 3% to 5%, extending the Chapter 3 schemes (like focus product and focus market schemes) to units in SEZ also, restoring validity of duty credit scrips to 24 months, etc.
“The last financial year was tough for the industry. In dollar terms, the industry grew by about 2.3% only. But in the first nine months of this financial year, it grew by 17.83%. We as an industry are hopeful of achieving 20% growth to $6 billion this financial year,” CLE chairman Rajendra K Jalan said.
The CLE has recently established a domestic industry cell. The domestic cell would interact between MSME and large enterprises in the domestic sector and would create awareness of government schemes for overall industrial development and work towards assisting the units in availing these schemes.
To begin with, the CLE proposes to commission a study on the leather and products industry in India to assess the present status of both organised and unorganised sectors and export and domestic retail market. ?The domestic leather market is valued at Rs 25,000 cr-ore and the mapping of the industry will be done by appointing an agency,? Jalan said.
CLE considers non-leather footwear an important segment of the industry which has shown positive growth in exports in the past few years. With a view to strengthen this segment in view of its growth potential both in exports and domestic sector, the council created a separate panel for non-leather footwear segment.
