Focused export promotion body, market intelligence across states in offing

New Delhi, Dec 18: With bilateral trade becoming a thrust area for the government amidst a series of negotiations on free trade agreement (FTA) with multiple countries, the Commerce Ministry is planning to create an export promotion focused entity for promoting Indian exports.
The Ministry is also working on a Brand India strategy under an overarching objective of trade promotion across the globe. As part of the Government’s work on ‘future ready commerce’, the separate export promotion wing will have footprint in all Indian missions abroad and in every state of India.
“A bilateral and multilateral engagement department will be constituted under the trade negotiation wing,” said Commerce Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, elaborating on the Centre’s preparatory groundwork for ushering in FTAs at the FICCI Annual Convention and 94th AGM on Saturday.
“The initiative will reflect Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s diplomacy, which is focused on 3Ts – trade, tourism and technology. A market intelligence will be set up across the states of India, which will help the industry in boosting exports,” he added.
Speaking on the ease of doing business and its successes at the AGM, Secretary DPIIT Anurag Jain set a higher benchmark for India in its push for wider reforms for ease of living.
While the Government has focused on holistic reforms in all sectors and the efforts have led to easing of a number of compliances across sectors and states, India should aspire to match up with countries like New Zealand and Singapore, the best in class, for actual transformation, Jain suggested.
“The reforms are focused on actual easing of processes than mere improvements in the ranking. If we continue with the process in the right direction, results will follow,” he added.
Jain highlighted PM Gatishakti, ease of living and Start-up India the 3 most important priorities for the Government. To enhance ease by reducing the compliance burden, work has been done in two phases where about 25,000 compliances have been reduced jointly by the efforts of the states and the Centre. The government is working towards simplification, removal of redundant laws, digitisation and decriminalisation to ease business processes with commendable work in the area of drone and geospatial maps which have created an opportunity for open innovation and reduction in cost.
Jain called on industry to make use of the National Single Window portal where 19 departments and 10 states are already connected and provide feedback to DPIIT for further improvements.
“Government is looking to businesses for their partnership in identifying the real problems so that they can be targeted and solved,” Jain said.
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