[Answered] How government aims to achieve export promotion with the help of India’s Foreign Trade Policy, 2023?

A trade policy is a government policy that affects the number of goods and services a country exports and imports. Recently, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry has launched the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 to enhance the competitiveness of Indian exports in the global market (India’s overall exports are about to reach US $760 billion this year)

Government aims to achieve export promotion with the help of India’s Foreign Trade Policy, 2023 in following ways:

• The focus of the new policy is on providing automatic approvals for various permissions. For instance, the processing time for revalidationof various authorisations, which currently ranges from three days to one month, is expected to be brought down to one day.
• Further, a one-time amnesty schemehas been introduced that aims at faster resolution of trade disputes.
• Four new towns (Faridabad, Mirzapur, Moradabad, and Varanasi) have been designated as Towns of Export Excellence (TEE). The TEEs will have priority access to export promotion funds under the MAI scheme. It will boost the exports of handlooms, handicrafts, and carpets.
• The FTP aims at building partnerships with State governments and taking forward the Districts as Export Hubs (DEH) initiative. This would promote exports at the district level and accelerate the development of grassroots trade ecosystem.
• A robust export control system in India would provide access of dual-use High end goods and technologies to Indian exporters while facilitating exports of controlled items/technologies under SCOMET from India.
• DTA (Domestic Tariff Area) units can access the Advance Authorization Scheme for duty-free import of raw materials for manufacturing export items, and it can be used for domestic and export production.
• The FTP 2023 has introduced provisions for merchanting trade, which allows the shipment of goods from one foreign country to another foreign country without touching Indian ports, involving an Indian intermediary. This is expected to allow Indian entrepreneurs to convert certain places into major merchanting hubs.

The new policy needs to be supplemented with other measures to boost the country’s trade performance. These range from lowering import tariffs and ensuring a competitive exchange rate to signing broader and deeper free trade agreements.