Mumbai: The government is in the process of formulating an alternative duty neutralisation scheme for exporters and will announce the new scheme soon, commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath said.

"The new scheme is in the final stage. It will be announced soon," he said at the annual conference of United Planters'' Association of Southern India.

The commerce ministry had asked the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the Economic Law Forum to work out an alternative scheme, which would neutralise all levies — customs and excise duties along with state levies — while being WTO compatible.

The objective of the DEPB was to neutralise the incidence of customs duty on the import content of the exported product. The neutralisation is provided through grant of duty credit against the export product. The scheme was to expire this year and was extended for another year till March 31, 2008.