Citizens’ Research Collective on SEZ

UPA to review SEZ law
http://203.197.197.71/presentation/leftnavigation/news/business/upa-to-review-sez-law.aspx
BY OUR CORRESPONDENT

Mumbai

Aug. 22: The area under the handicraft business in the Special Economic Zones will be decreased to 10 hectares from 100 hectares, and there will be a refund of service tax paid by the companies who outsource work outside the SEZ.

These are some of the new initiatives that will be incorporated in the SEZ policy. Mr G. Pillai, commerce secretary, made this announcement in Mumbai on Friday while speaking at the conference organised on SEZs and its problems by the Maharashtra Economic Development Council. He said there is a possibility that even developers of SEZs will get tax benefits that export companies get.

Mr Pillai said these were among the issues discussed recently by the Empowered Group of Ministers. “Very soon these topics will be incorporated in the SEZ policy,” he said.

He further said, “There are a lot of problems and difference of opinion arising out of SEZs. It is a new concept for us, so we need to review the policy from time to time.” The SEZs will provide 8,00,000 jobs and the investment in them will be around Rs 2,00,000 crore by December 2009. Additionally 16 lakh jobs will be generated through indirect employment in this year he said.

He said that,” SEZs are attracting the investments in areas that were earlier unattractive. The leather industry is one such example where due to the SEZ, the international players like Adidas and Nike are coming India,” he said.