The `District Export Hubs’ initiative will form an important component of the new Foreign Trade Policy to mobilise the potential of each district of the country to help them emerge as export hubs.
The Department of Commerce through the Regional Authorities of the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has engaged with State / UTs to take forward this initiative in the districts and enable its implementation in a phased manner, Minister of State for Commerce, Hardeep Singh Puri, said briefing Members of Parliament at the meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on the new FTP 2021-26 on Tuesday.
The new FTP will come into effect on April 1, 2021, for a period of five years. “The FTP 2015-20 came into effect on April 1 2015 and was extended by one year till March 31, 2021, due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” an official release on the meeting stated.
A key driver for India to achieve the $5-trillion (GDP) mark in an expedited time frame would be boosting exports, both merchandise and services, by systematically addressing domestic and overseas constraints related to the policy, regulatory and operational framework for lowering transactions costs and enhancing ease of doing business, creating a low-cost operating environment through efficient, cost-effective and adequate logistical and utilities infrastructure.
Improvements in the operation of the domestic manufacturing and services sector, in combination with efficient infrastructure support by the government, would result in correcting the imbalances within India and feed into the trade policy.
The MPs participating in the meeting made suggestions which Puri assured would be considered by the Ministry while finalising the FTP, the release added.
In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposal put forward in his Independence Day speech in 2019 on turning every district into an export hub, the Commerce Ministry has been working on an institutional structure for this.