New Delhi, May 6 (KNN) The industry experts attending the Mid-Term review meeting of the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-2020 raised concerns related to exports under the upcoming GST regime with the Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier today.

Highlighting the concerns to be addressed, Sitharaman said that the two prime issues that concern the exporters particularly the entrepreneurs from the SME sector include the confusion around the way in which the refund is going to be entertained to the exporters.

As of now, the proposed procedure says that in case of a refund, 90 per cent of the amount will be reimbursed within seven days, and the remaining 10 per cent amount will be reimbursed in a period of 4-5 months. Also in case of delay, the exporter will be given interest at a rate of 4-6 per cent on the pending amount. The concern of the industry is that this might be troublesome as the MSMEs operate on smaller level and the keeping the money locked up for longer time period will not be in the best interest of the industry.

Another problem that came out of the meeting is the issue around the credit on goods that are tax exempt. For many industries, tax exempted goods such as the items coming from the agricultural sector has no tax on it, therefore the provision of credit on it is missing under the upcoming GST.

Marking these two concerns as important, Nirmala assured that the Commerce Ministry will approach the GST council along with G.K Pillai, as he is heading the GST drawback committee. (KNN/ DA)