Stating that India is committed to trade facilitation, Commerce Secretary Rajeev Kher, on Tuesday, said the country’s conventional approach to Free Trade Agreements is “highly unsustainable”.
While addressing industry leaders at CII National Council meeting, Mr. Kher said there is a pressing need for India to put its house in order to take on the challenges that it will now face.
Highlighting areas that need to be focused on, he said India needs to look at diversifying into markets such as CIS countries, CLMV countries, Africa, West Asia and Middle East.
He added that India needs to push services exports and focus on standards and technical regulations to graduate to higher markets.
A more comprehensive foreign trade policy that goes beyond the reward scheme approach is being put in place, he said , adding that a significant amount of work is required to address issues related to ease of doing business, infrastructure, digitisation and studying the negative impact of FTAs.
Industry leaders such as Biocon Chairman and Managing Director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Godrej Industries Chairman Adi Godrej, Hero MotoCorp's managing director & CEO Pawan Munjal, CII president Ajay Shriram
attended the meeting. Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das, who also addressed the meeting, said the Budget had taken a lot of measures to revive economic growth, despite the fiscal space being extremely limited.
