FIEO urges Centre to extend interest subvention scheme for 5 years

Apex exporters body FIEO on Tuesday urged the government to extend the interest subvention scheme for five years to help increase credit flow in the sector in order to boost the country's shipments, which registered a steepest decline in 13-month falling 9.3 per cent in August to USD 34.71 billion. Earlier this month, the government extended the interest equalisation/subvention scheme, which provides interest benefits, on pre- and post-shipment rupee export credit for one more month till September 30. "The scheme will end on September 30. We have requested for it to be extended for five years. If there is no interest equalization scheme, then we will lose some markets and some orders," Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Director General Ajay Sahai told reporters here. The scheme helps exporters from identified sectors and all MSME (micro, small and medium enterprise) manufacturer exporters to avail of rupee export credit at competitive rates at a time when the global .