The much-delayed reboot of India’s Foreign Trade Policy, which has been unchanged since 2015 and whose revision has been due for three years, may finally be announced by the end of this month, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said.
Last September, the Commerce Ministry had planned to announce a new trade policy but abandoned those plans and extended the ‘Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20’ by six more months till March 31.
“During these six months, we have looked at various aspects of that policy and undertaken a visioning exercise, keeping our aspirations to achieve $1 trillion of merchandise and services exports each,” Mr. Barthwal said. “So within that framework, we have worked out the Foreign Trade Policy and we are expecting that it would be released by the end of the month,” he added.
Curbing import bill
Pointing to the decline in India’s goods import bill in the last couple of months, the Secretary said this was a reflection of efforts steered by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal to contain unnecessary imports.
“We have been working with all ministries and have shared the import figures for each product to examine if they are essential and non-essential imports. If a generic drug needs an active pharmaceutical ingredient from China, it is essential,” Mr. Barthwal explained, adding that it is also being examined if there is adequate domestic manufacturing capacity to substitute imports.
“But it will depend on the global supply chain links too. Price differential also has to be seen,” he said, adding that the ministries have been urged to discourage imports where possible once they analyse their necessity.
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