Concerned over the waning interest in special economic zones (SEZs) despite a revamp of policy, the commerce ministry now plans to woo foreign investors.
The ministry is planning to take a team of representatives from state governments,
SEZ developers and other stakeholders to Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Europe to revive interest in the SEZs.
"We are working on conducting road shows to tell investors that India is a huge market for them with low labour costs and good infrastructure. The general notion that it is difficult to conduct business in India needs to be broken. We intend to do that," a government official said.
The official said that the road shows would begin next month before which the ministry intends to finalise the rules for the revamped SEZ policy.
The ministry had announced a 'package of reforms' for SEZs which included easing of land requirement norms and an
exit policy to rekindle investor interest.
Due to acute difficulties in aggregating large tracts of uncultivable land to set up SEZ, the minimum land area requirement was reduced by half for different categories of SEZs. There would be no minimum land requirement for setting up IT/ITeS SEZs. The government has also allowed transfer of ownership of SEZ units including its sale.
SEZ, which were once a major attraction for investors, lost its sheen after the imposition of minimum alternate tax and dividend distribution tax in 2011 along with the proposals in the Direct Taxes Code pending with Parliament.
The 170 functional SEZs have attracted investment of over Rs 2.36 lakh crore and exports from them totalled Rs 4.76 lakh crore in 2012-13, a growth of over 2,000 per cent over the 7-year period. The SEZs provided 10,74,904 jobs as on March 31, 2013. The government has so far approved 577 SEZs of which 389 are notified.
Source : indianexpress.com