No.14/005/093/2004
July 19, 2004
All members of the Council
Dear Members,
Sub: Union Budget 2004-05
This is further to our e-mail dated July 9, 2004 under which we have forwarded a Note on highlights of the budget for your reference.
Please find enclosed herewith a hardcopy of the aforesaid Note, alongwith a statement showing the Pre and Post-budget import duty structure in respect of raw materials, capital goods and essential inputs used by leather & leather products industry.
While on the subject, we wish to state that the Council had earlier submitted various pre-budget proposals to the Government seeking Customs, Central Excise as well as Income tax relief for the leather sector. The few important proposals submitted by the Council include enhancement of duty free import entitlement from 1% to 3% for various leather product segments, allowing duty free import of essential packaging materials, lowering import duty on parts of machinery,
extending 5% concessional import duty on machinery to non-leather footwear sector, import duty exemption on patent
leather, exempting Central Excise duty / CVD on raw, tanned, and dressed furskins, removing Central Excise duty on footwear components etc
The Council effectively followed up the matter with Department of Commerce as well as DGFT to recommend to the Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance for favourable consideration in the Unon budget. Besides, the Chairman of the Council Shri S S Kumar made an exclusive presentation to the Hon'ble Union Minister for Commerce & Industry highlighting both the Exim & fiscal policy support measures that are needed to boost export from the sector and achieve desired growth.
Despite all such efforts, barring a few suggestions, most of the proposals of the Council have not been considered in the budget. In fact the CVD exemption has been withdrawn on capital goods and lining & interlining materials which resulted in higher duty incidence, combined with new levy of Education cess.
Keeping in view the implications of such hike in import duties effected in the budget, the Chairman of the Council submitted an exclusive memorandum to the Hon'ble Union Minister for Commerce & Industry requesting him to take-up the matter with the Hon'ble Finance Minister for restoring the CVD exemption on import of machinery & equipment and reconsideration of Council's suggestions earlier submitted. Representations have also been sent to DGFT as well as to Joint Secretary-Department of Commerce requesting them to recommend all our suggestions suitably to the Department of Revenue for necessary re-consideration.
This is for information of our member-exporters at this stage. We shall keep you informed of the further developments in the matter.
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
K Abdul Sattar Khan
Assistant Director
Highlights of Union Budget 2004-05
STATEMENT SHOWING IMPORT DUTY RATES PRE-BUDGET vis-à-vis POST BUDGET 2004-05
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