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No plans to regulate gold imports now: Sinha

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha today said there are no plans at present to curtail gold imports into India.

He was asked by mediapersons if any ideas were being formulated to curb the 230 per cent surge in gold imports in June.

In January, the government had increased import tariffs to regulate gold imports when the prices of the precious metal were falling.

"When imports went down in the first few months of this year, people attributed it to an increase in duty that I had brought about," Sinha said. ''You cannot prevent gold imports.''

Sinha refused to comment on the weakening in the value of the rupee. ''Earlier, I have been misunderstood on my comments on rupee. I can only say that the Reserve Bank of India has the job of watching the foreign exchange market and it is doing a good job so far.''

(Today, the rupee recovered from intra-day lows of Rs 43.585 to the dollar after opening at Rs 43.47/49 when State Bank of India sold dollars, apparently at the best of the RBI.)

Sinha said the small scale sector should realise that protection and promotion can go on only for a limited period if the sector has to emerge self-reliant. ''The sooner the sector realises that reservations cannot continue for long, the better,'' he added.

For a resilient small scale sector, Sinha suggested formulation of new financial instruments and products, besides appropriate support services.

Also, emphasising on quality and cost effectiveness within the sector, the finance minister said small scale units could penetrate in world markets. The sector already exports 35 per cent of India's total exports.

He urged the lenders to this sector to provide not only finance but also timely counselling, market intelligence and infrastructure for improving the operational efficiency of the SSIs.

Complimenting the SSIs for showing consistent growth higher than the rest of the industrial sector, Sinha said the questions of ancillarisation, mechanisation and rationalisation of excise duties need to be addressed.

He suggested that the definition of a small scale sector unit needs to take into account not merely its turnover but also manpower employed. The definition should also take into consideration whether the unit is in the service sector.

Sinha said the sector is expected to generate one million jobs even while clocking an export growth of 8-8.5 per cent in 1999-2000.

UNI

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