India May Start Exporting Ventilators: Piyush Goyal

New Delhi, 21 July 2020:

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Monday said India might soon start exporting ventilators citing lower requirement and use compared to earlier projections of the life-saving machines.

“There is not much requirement of ventilators… even those that were projected earlier, are not being used. We may start exporting ventilators,” Goyal said at a virtual event of the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Kolkata.

He said the country has added more ventilators in the last four months than were added in the last 73 years, and that there were 11,000-15,000 ventilators in the pre-Covid days.

“We identified new manufacturers and the existing ones were asked to increase capacity,” he said.

On the issue of export promotion, Goyal said that the government is redrafting and renaming the NIRVIK (Niryat Rin Vikas Yojana) scheme that seeks to provide enhanced insurance cover and reduce premiums for small exporters. A renewed EFC note has been sent to the finance ministry that could include merchant exporters as well.

The scheme is also called the Export Credit Insurance Scheme (ECIS) under which the insurance guaranteed could cover up to 90% of the principal and interest. At present, the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation provides credit guarantee of up to 60% loss.

“We are redrafting it towards reinsurance so that ECGC can independently handle it,” he said.

Goyal said he will take up with the finance ministry the issue of risky exporters to put in a process through which if exporters share their data, they can come out of the risky exporter list and everything can be put in public domain.

Risky exporters are seen as suspicious by the customs department for claiming their duty drawback and IGST refunds on the basis of bogus invoices and their consignments undergo manual checking before their claims are refunded. Economic Times