Budget 2022: New SEZ policy in 3-4 months; capex push unheard of, says Piyush Goyal

Goyal explained that the SEZ policy in India was largely export-oriented and the focus of the government will now be on making them centres for economic activity and industrial parks as a whole and thus expanding the it ambit.

He said, "We believe that it will be good to allow the SEZ now to grow beyond the mould of export to become centres of industrial activity or economic activity, supporting industries, supporting services. We want to encash this concept of special zones into industrial zones and help them to bring in faster economic development. We want to engage with the states maybe take some of the state's industrial parks also, within the ambit of  SEZ, share the benefits of SEZ policy with the state's industrial parks."

The commerce minister expects the new SEZ policy to come out in maximum six months' time.

Goyal said, "We are working on the contours of a new law, which will help us to expand the ambit of SEZs and should take a few months to engage with all the various stakeholders, get them on board, do the fair understanding of what kind of equalisation duties or levies will be required to bring the picture to a level playing field, maybe about three to four months, or at best six months."

The government is also working on several fronts to expand bilateral trading arrangements.

Goyal said, "We are there at a very advanced stage with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which is one of our largest trading partners, and we shall in the next few weeks, will be coming up with robust announcements around UAE FTA.”

He added, “We have as you rightly pointed out with the UK first round has gone well, next round is slated for March. With Australia, we are at an advanced stage.”