Indian exporters are not expecting any major incentives aside from some sops here and there in terms of increasing the number of items and the markets eligible for sops from the annual review of the foreign trade policy later this month.  

"Exporters are not expecting much (in terms of) financial part of the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP), but I think government would take some steps on the non-financial part," President of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) A Sakthivel said.

He said some steps like reduction in the transaction costs by streamlining of procedures for clearances can be expected from the policy.

The policy, to be unveiled in the last week of this month by Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, may at best, shuffle the export incentives from one sector to another.

India's exports were in the red for 13 successive months, starting October 2008, before turning positive in November 2009. Exports maintained an upward trend since then but it can partly be attributed to a low base effect.

Exports have grown by over 30 percent in the first quarter of the current fiscal to around USD 50 billion. According to the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, the year may end with USD 216 billion for export shipments.

However, economic woes in some of the European economies and their impact on rest of the continent remains a cause of worry. Also, there are some sectors like textiles and handicrafts which are still not doing well and require government intervention.

"Still, exporters should not expect much from the FTP. They should expect limited incentives from the Commerce Ministry due to the ministry's financial constraints," an international trade expert with the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade said.

Meanwhile, according to a media report, the commerce and revenue secretaries are expected to meet later this week to finalize the list of export sectors which will receive some fiscal sops, which will be announced in the foreign trade policy review.

The report stated that the Commerce Ministry has reportedly sought more than Rs. 1,200 crore for the sops and also prepared a priority list of sectors that are still struggling in exports and depending on the amount sanctioned by the revenue department, the identified sectors would be entitled to the package, with the ones on the top of the priority list getting the maximum support.

The government introduced a series of fiscal stimulus in 2008-09 and 2009-10 to to help the industry fight the global economic slowdown. According to figures given by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Parliament last week, the total fiscal stimulus added to Rs 186,000 crore.

However, with pick-up in industrial activity this fiscal, the government has been withdrawing the stimulus in the current fiscal with partial rollback of the excise duty concessions from eight per cent to 10 per cent for most of the items.