Gandhinagar, Aug 7 (IANS): The Gujarat government on Friday announced its new industrial policy as it delinked incentives for industries under the State Goods & Services Tax (SGST).

Now incentives of up to 12 per cent of the Fixed Capital Investment (FCI) will be given to industries instead of the SGST incentives. The policy has an annual outlay of Rs 8,000 crore till 2025. The earlier policy had expired on December 31, 2019, and was extended till the new policy announcement.

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani announced the new Industrial Policy 2020. He said, "Earlier, the industrial units had to wait for the goods to be sold and then wait for the SGST from the government. In a bold move, we have done away with the SGST returns altogether and instead we will be giving incentives of up to 12 per cent of the Fixed Capital Investment in our new policy."

The new policy aims to promote Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the state and make them globally competitive. "The focus of this policy is to take the state forward with the help of technology which will be used to create value addition in the products, increase productivity with Industry 4.0 manufacturing, and innovation-driven ecosystems with focus on research and development," Rupani said.

The basis of this new industrial policy is framed on two thrust sectors - the core sector and the sunrise sector. The core sector is where Gujarat has a strong base in manufacturing, like electrical and industrial machinery, automotive, agro and food processing, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, among others.

The sunrise sector will include areas with significant potential for growth like electric vehicles, waste management projects, eco-friendly combustible materials, Industry 4.0 equipment, solar and wind equipment and export-based units.

The new policy offers interest subsidy of up to 7 per cent for up to Rs 35 lakh per annum for a period of seven years for MSMEs. According to the new policy, industries will be provided government land for projects in long-term lease up to 50 years at 6 per cent of the market rate. "This will attract more industries to the state. The major problem for the industries was the availability of land. Through this arrangement, a single window clearance for the projects will be available to the industries," Rupani said.

To frame the policy, the government had constituted nine taskforce committees who received suggestions and feedback. According to the government, most of the suggestions from the industries were incorporated into the new policy.