The Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, is likely to call on the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, here on Friday at the latter’s North Block office.
Indications are that Mr Sharma will at the meeting take up the concerns expressed by the SEZ fraternity over the proposal to do away with tax breaks for SEZ units that are set up after April 1 next year.
The revised discussion paper on the new Direct Taxes Code has made it clear that the profit linked deduction would be protected only for the existing units in SEZs.
By implication, all new SEZ units set up after April 1, 2011, when the DTC is expected to come into force, will not get any tax breaks. The Finance Ministry is not in favour of profit-linked deductions.
The meeting comes close on the heels of China’s move to revalue its currency, the yuan, against the US dollar and also the ushering in of the base rate linked lending regime in India.
There are indications that the meeting will see discussions on the cost of credit for exporters in the changed lending regime besides issues such as interest rate subventions for the export sector.
