The Hindu Business Line : Foreign trade should serve the common man: Jairam Ramesh

THE new Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh, said that his priority is to focus on local facets of exports even as his senior colleague, the Minister of Commerce & Industry, Mr Kamal Nath, would be focussing on international facets of foreign trade.

For Mr Ramesh, who was part of the team that prepared the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's common minimum programme (CMP) to take on board supporting parties from within and without, the transition from the key member of the Congress party's economic think-tank and Member of the National Advisory Council (NAC) of the UPA Government to a Minister of State in the Union Cabinet appears to be smooth.

Talking to reporters, soon after assuming office at the Udoyog Bhawan, Mr Ramesh, a Member of the Upper House since 2004, amplified what the local facets of foreign trade could be.

He said it consisted of four planks viz., trade and employment, trade and agriculture, trade and regional development and trade and value-addition. He said foreign trade as per the underlying ideologies of the UPA Government's CMP should serve the aam adami (common man) and it should be oriented to benefiting the man on the street.

He told Business Line later that in a country where agriculture remains the mainstay of economic activity for millions of people, any strategy that bypasses the fundamental concerns of this important segment would result in lop-sided development. He said that trade and regional development means creating clusters of export excellence such as Tirupur and Ludhiana (for knitwear and hosiery) so that more regions in the country could be developed, and in the process result in more employment.

Mr Ramesh said that trade and value addition would mean focusing on exports of iron ore, medicinal plants and herbals for adding value and exporting them so that the products from the backward regions of the country and the people who toil there would get recognition and foreign exchange earnings.

He said that he would work closely with Mr Kamal Nath on the export front so that the basic foundations of development and benefits to ordinary people across the country were reinforced even as the economy registers high growth rate, propelled by expanding exports.