Book Overview

INTRODUCTION The leather industry gains its importance in the Indian economy as it has massive potential for employment opportunities, huge cattle population and wide opportunities for export growth. There has been a constant emphasis on export promotion, aimed at optimum utilisation of available resources for maximising the foreign earnings. All the developing countries like India, are concentrating on export promotion as it plays vital role in economic growth. Several measures are being adopted to improve export competitiveness by the Government of the respective countries. In this context, Export Processing Zones (presently Special Economic Zones – SEZ) gain its importance due to their catalytic role in promoting the export by imparting outward orientation to the economies. This paves way to start Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in India. The basic objective of setting up EPZs in India is to promote exports and foreign exchange earnings. Though Export Processing Zones (EPZs) are regarded as a feature of Indian policy since 1960, they have been much less successful when compared to the zones of ASEAN and China, as they framed experimental platform for more general policy change. The objectives of EPZs were are clearly spelt out in India until the late 1980s, in actual practice the predominant condition in selecting EPZ units had been the expected value addition component of exports (Kumar 1989)1. The post liberalisation era of India has witnessed significant scope and opportunity for the Indian leather industry. Presently, Indian leather industry occupies a place of prominence in the global economy as the leather sector has undergone a dramatic transformation from being a mere exporter of raw materials in the sixties to being a producer of valued added finished products in nineties. The features of Export Processing Zones and the development they have brought within the country served as the reason for the setting up of more EPZs in India and the development they have brought within the country. In general, Export Processing Zones (EPZ) can be defined as the labour intensive and export–oriented production centres of a country. According to a new scheme in the EXIM Policy 2000 the Government of India converted all the Export Processing Zones in the country into Special Economic Zones (SEZ)