Govt unveils new foreign trade policy; to raise exports to $900 bn

Sanjeev Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 1

The government’s Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2015-20 aims to push exports of the manufacturing and services sector, simplification of procedures, focus on ease of doing business and integrating programmes like Make in India with the export push.

The FTP was unveiled today by Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who said the focus is on generation of employment and increasing value addition in the country, in keeping with the “Make in India” vision of Prime Minister.

The focus of the new policy is to support both the manufacturing and services sectors, with a special emphasis on improving the ease of doing business.

She said there were various forces shaping India and its equation with the rest of the world.

The policy aims to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 11.5% so as to increase the merchandise and services exports from $466 billion in 2013-14 to $900 billion by 2019-20.

The policy introduces two new schemes for merchandise and services exports in place of a plethora of schemes earlier.

In line with the Make in India campaign, measures have been adopted to nudge procurement of capital goods from indigenous manufacturers under the EPCG scheme, which will promote the domestic capital goods manufacturing industry.

Measures have been taken to give a boost to exports of defence and hi-tech items. At the same time, e-commerce exports of handloom products, books and periodicals, leather footwear, toys and customised fashion garments through courier or foreign post office would also be able to get benefits. These measures would not only capitalise on India’s strength in these areas and increase exports but also provide employment.

The minister said though exports from SEZs had seen phenomenal growth, significantly higher than the overall export growth of the country, in recent times they had been facing several challenges. In order to give a boost to exports from SEZs, the government has now decided to extend benefits of both the reward schemes to units located in SEZs. It is hoped that this measure will give a new impetus to development and growth of SEZs in the country.

Trade facilitation and enhancing the ease of doing business are the other major focus areas in this new FTP. One of the major objectives of the new FTP is to move towards paperless working 24x7.

SC Ralhan, president, FIEO, said the new policy recognises the global challenges faced by the export sector and also identify the potential sectors which could emerge as winners in the next 5 years.

Ralhan said defence, pharmaceuticals, technology products, project exports, green and environment-friendly goods and e-commerce will be India’s exports strength in the next few years.

Assocham president Rana Kapoor said the boost to e-commerce and services exports are well-timed and take into account the unfolding shift in the paradigm of businesses.

What is quite significant is the involvement of the states in devising strategy for boosting exports, he added. Some life has been infused in the moribund SEZs while a lot would depend on the implementation of some of the steps.