In a bid to boost export-oriented manufacturing of electronics in the country, the government is looking to roll out package of measures by early next month, ahead of the release of the new National Electronics Manufacturing policy, as per Business Line report.
Sources close to the development told BusinessLine that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is in the finalising stages of this package, which will not only focus on mobile phones export but also other electronics items such as medical and automobile electronics.
One of the proposals under discussion pertains to streamlining the procedure and increasing the timelines allowed to exporters to bring in for servicing or repair an electronics product that has been sold or exported from India.
Re-importing
“When our manufacturers export electronics goods, they are allowed to re-import it for the purpose of repairs or service for only three years. The process to bring it back after three years is complex, so we are looking at increasing that. We are talking to other related ministries about increasing that said period so that customers are more comfortable buying such products from India,” a senior official at MeitY said.
The idea behind such a step up in making packages is to give competitiveness to the manufacturers, in not only producing items for the domestic market, but also for exports in major markets globally, the official said.
“We have a market of around 35 crore mobile phones (feature and smartphones) in a year right now and around 22.5 crore phones manufactured every year. So, as we get close to manufacturing 30 crore handsets in a year, we need to open window for exports as well as production will be more than what we consume then,” he explained.
Growth rate
Another official said that currently India exports electronic products worth $6.5 billion in a year, and this is the segment which is growing at a faster rate to export $10 billion at the earliest.
According to experts, such packages can make environment-friendly and ease of doing business for not only domestic players, but also for leading players like Apple, which are planning to make India an export hub for their exports.
(Source: Business Line)
