The Hindu Business Line : India's role in global trade becoming significant: Kamal Nath

The Government's foreign trade policy initiatives have begun paying rich dividends and this was evident from the fact that merchandise exports have touched $100 billion now, up from $63 billion in 2004, an increase of about 26 per cent year-on-year, during each of the last two years, the Union Commerce & Industry Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, said on Wednesday.

Addressing students at the 40th convocation of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) here, Mr Kamal Nath said in the changing world economic order, India has successfully demonstrated its capability to capture potential markets through value addition in several fields as diverse as engineering goods, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and biotech and also fashions, lifestyle products and leather goods. India dominates the global diamond market with 11 out of 12 diamonds in the world being cut and polished in India.

Role in global trade

The Minister said along with its services imports and exports, India's aggregate economic engagement with the world today tops $350 billion. He said even as India was becoming very significant in global trade with its tariffs coming down to ASEAN levels with liberal FDI regime and TRIPs-compliant domestic laws, the barriers in developed countries have now become more subtle — they are non-tariff barriers (NTBs) and sanitary and phytosanitary standard regulations.

Pointing out that India's membership of the WTO has admittedly been beneficial, the Minister said its core concerns and interests have been addressed in the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration.

IIFT Kolkata Centre

The Director, IIFT, and former Commerce Secretary, Mr Prabir Sengupta, announced that the IIFT Kolkata Centre would start functioning from July 2006 with the launch of the flagship MBA (International Business) Programme.

"Another fresh initiative of the institute is the setting up of small and medium enterprise (SME) Center. The Centre promises to provide continuous support by carrying out activities such as training programmes, provision of business intelligence services through a databank, besides being a catalyst for interface with other concerned institutions," he said.