The Union Ministry of Commerce has decided to grant financial assistance to facilitate export promotion programmes in ASEAN region under the Marketing Development Assistance (MDA) scheme. The revised MDA code of the ministry, which is to be effective from April 2004, has included Focus ASEAN along with existing programmes targeting the export markets in Latin American countries, CIS nations and African countries.

Due to the central initiative, exporters will be given substantial financial assistance for participating in trade exhibitions/delegations/fairs in countries like Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Pharmaceutical companies having export plans for ASEAN markets can make use of the facility through the Basic Chemicals Pharmaceuticals and Cosmetics Export Promotion Council (Chemexcil).

Efforts are also underway to include Australia and New Zealand under the ambit of this Focus ASEAN programme. The ministry is holding talks with countries like Japan, China and Korea also in this regard.

The MDA scheme is primarily meant for assisting export promotion programmes in specific regions abroad. It is also used for residual essential activities connected with these marketing promotion efforts.

The revised MDA code would also talk about additional financial allotment for apex trade promotion organizations like FICCI and CII. The territorial divisions dealing with Focus Area Programmes would be free to recommend activities to be undertaken by export promotion councils and other trade promotion organizations with the allocations made for respective focus programme. While the existing MDA code allows a maximum expenditure ceiling of Rs.10 lakhs, the government intends to enhance it by another Rs.10 lakhs by earmarking Rs.10 lakhs for each focus area programme and another part for general areas. The total MDA grant to such approved trade bodies would be Rs.50 lakh per year.

The ministry has also decided to begin direct assistance to government bodies like Federation of Indian Exporters Oganisation and Indian Trade Promotion Organisation. While the earlier rules allowed no direct assistance to these bodies, the revised code would allow MDA assistance to FIEO and ITPO with the condition that the export promotion activities are for multi-product sectors or products/services and are not covered by any other export promotion councils or to a country where councils are not in a position to participate.

The provision to assist EPCs to contest anti-dumping cases initiated by other countries remains the same in the revised code.

The ministry has also deleted several clauses from the current MDA code as they were found to be clashing with MAI scheme objectives. The assistance given towards the production of publicity material, market survey/studies, MDA assistance for administrative expenditure to EPCs are all going to be absent in the forthcoming code.