Across the world, trade and economy are rebounding quickly, resulting in the developed countries evolving into consumers. This poses an opportune time for India to place its economy onto a faster growth orbit and expand its exports. This was stated by Mr B.V.R Subrahmanyam, Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, India while addressing a session on New Direction of India’s FTA Strategy at the Partnership Summit 2021, organised virtually by CII in partnership with Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Government of India.
For India, being the only major economy, which has not signed major inter-regional agreement at present, the FTA negotiations assume increased importance. India is negotiating several FTAs which will be concluded over the next year.
‘Unlike previous times, we are now working towards new generation FTAs with advanced economies such as UK, Australia, EU, and UAE, which aim towards bringing tremendous access to new markets while bringing down the protectionist barriers significantly,’ he added.
Stating that it is now time to look at the global markets, the Secretary mentioned that to fully reap the benefits of the FTAs, industry will have to develop active market orientation along with market intelligence, increased focus on value addition, moving up the value chain and bringing in quality products and branding.
Mr Diego Llosa, Vice Minister of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Peru while addressing the session, informed that for more than last 25 years, Peru, with a view to promote economic growth and development and participate in the global value chain, has maintained a trade policy based on the principle of openness and trade liberalisation.
The Minister while apprising about Peru’s ongoing FTA negotiations with India, which is Peru’s 4th trading partner in Asia, highlighted that the agreement will help strengthen the economic and commercial relations between the two countries.
Dr. Harsha Vardhana Singh, Former DDG, WTO, India, mentioned that for integration of Indian producers into global value with higher addition, more than just trade policy changes need to be considered. Highlighting that Government of India, in the recent years has undertaken several reform measures in the trade ecosystem, Dr Singh, noted, that there is still some scope of improvement in the on-ground effectiveness of these reforms.
Dr. Rupa Chanda, Director, Trade, Investment, and Innovation Division, UNESCAP, Thailand, highlighted that in order to further add value and encourage exports, it is imperative to see imports as beneficial, as they bring improved and advanced technologies into the country.
Complimenting India’s export performance, even amidst pandemic, Dr Ajit Ranade, Chief Economist, Aditya Birla Group, mentioned that India has embraced and is very committed to the concept of global value chains.
Mr Vir S Advani, Chairman, CII National Committee on EXIM and Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Blue Star Limited, said that it is the opportune time for India to plug into global demand as economies are looking at newer sources and supply chains are shifting geographies.
Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII said that the new era in trade has been evolving and for India, it has emerged as a tremendous growth driver. In these post pandemic times, we are likely to see our exports and imports at significantly higher levels, he added.
14 December 2021