ASSOCHAM President BK Goenka welcomes measures announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman
New Delhi, 14th September 2019: ASSOCHAM today welcomed yet another tranche of measures announced by the Finance Minister, Mrs Nirmala Sitharaman to revive the economic growth by addressing crucial sectors of exports and the stressed residential real estate.
“The steps on helping exports should go a long way in making Indian exporters competitive in the global market which is becoming tougher by the day by a host of factors like non-tariff barriers in major economies of the world, the collateral damage of the US-China trade row and slowdown across different markets,” said ASSOCHAM president, Mr B.K. Goenka.
Mr Goenka said, “Committing more credit to exporters, bringing down the turnaround time at the ports at par with global standards and making the tax rebate schemes WTO-compliant with particular focus on labour-intensive sectors like textile and handicraft would lift the sentiment in the export sector.”
The ASSOCHAM chief said, “The government is rightly addressing issue of tax assessment by moving towards e-assessment and removing the discretionary powers of individual officers. ” The Finance Minister has sent a clear signal to her tax officials to help the businesses and not take arbitrary actions. This is a laudable step.”
As for housing, the setting up of a Stress Fund of Rs 10,000 crore which can be leveraged up to Rs 30,000-40,000 crore should fill in the last mile gap of funding the incomplete projects. Besides, the easing of norms for external commercial borrowings should encourage the housing finance companies to raise cheap funds from overseas and lend cheap back home for revival of the sector.
“We are happy that the government is going about addressing the problems of different sectors in a professional way, that too in a prudent manner,” Mr Goenka added.
