The Exim Policy is likely to give a fillip to the entertainment, health, education and tourism sectors as part of its strategy to boost services exports.

The new Exim Policy is to be announced on March 31.

Officials said the government wanted to make India a hub for providing world-class services in these sectors. They said more service sectors would be identified in due course since they promised better growth than merchandise exports.

Even controversial areas like legal services have been identified as sectors that can generate substantial foreign exchange.

The government will, however, wait a while before opening up these services. In any case, officials pointed out, the government did not intend to permit foreign firms to practice in India but wanted Indian lawyers to provide backroom services to international firms.

Officials said the government was, however, finding it difficult to collate sufficient data on the export of services.

The government had earlier proposed to initiate a medium-term services export strategy on the lines of the medium-term export strategy that sought to diversify India's export basket.

While a decision was taken nearly 18 months ago, no headway has been made yet.

In the Exim Policy, officials said, the government would not focus on providing fiscal incentives and would instead emphasise on creating the necessary environment to help investment in these sectors.

They said Finance Minister Jaswant Singh had already announced some incentives for the health and tourism sectors.

For the tourism sector, the finance minister has announced the withdrawal of expenditure tax and tax benefits to set off unabsorbed loss and depreciation on amalgamation for hotels.