The core focus of the revised Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) would be promoting exports from the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and sectors with high employment potential such as apparel. The revised FTP would be released early to synchronise the same with roll out of Goods and Services Tax (GST), Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said.

Sitharaman chaired a meeting on the mid-term review of FTP 2015-2020, organised jointly by Department of Commerce, and Research and Information System for the Developing Countries (RIS). It was attended by the trade policy experts from the industry, academia, research and government.

Major suggestions discussed during the deliberations related to promoting rupee trade, facilitating not only exports but also imports, and reducing cost of credit. Participants recommended harnessing the high foreign exchange earnings and large employment generation potential of services related to the tourism, education and health sectors.

Concerns were also raised on issues relating to GST and its impact on export. Minister said that Department of Commerce has already taken up these issues with Department of Revenue (DoR), and assured that it will again take up these issues with DoR for placing it before GST Council to find a solution.

Critical role of logistics sector for export competitiveness was also discussed. Reducing the cost of credit in promoting exports, export basket diversification, strategy for promoting value added exports, agriculture exports and services exports were also deliberated, an official statement said.

The mid-term review of FTP 2015-2020 was initiated by the Department of Commerce in January 2017. As part of the process, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has held consultation with a cross section of stakeholders, including exporters, traders, export promotion councils, commodity boards, various ministries of the Central and state governments, foreign missions of India and industry bodies.

Source: fibre2fashion