Sitharaman unveils new five-year Foreign Trade Policy

In tandem with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious 'Make in India' campaign, Union Trade Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a new five-year Foreign Trade Policy in New Delhi.

The event was also attended by Trade Secretary Rajeev Kher and other dignitaries.

The policy, said Sitharaman, aims at making India a significant participant in world trade by 2020.

"The new policy provides a framework for increasing exports of goods and services as well as generation of employment and increase in value addition in the country in keeping with the 'Make in India' vision of our honorable Prime Minister," she said.

Sitharaman also said external constraints are beyond control, but the country must address internal constraints such as infrastructure bottle necks, high transaction cost, complex procedures and constraints in manufacturing. She further emphasized that brand India must be synonymous with quality and reliability.

The foreign trade policy 2015 introduces two new schemes - the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), which is for specified goods to specified markets, and the Services Exports from India scheme (SEIS), which is for increasing exports of notified services. These replace multiple schemes, earlier in place, each with different conditions for eligibility and usage of scrips.

"No conditionality will be attached to any of scrips issued under these schemes. Duty, credits, scrips issued under MEIS and SEIS, and the goods imported against these scrips, are fully transferable," said Sitharaman.

India plans to pull its tariff regime closer in line with global norms to prepare for new regional trade pacts being negotiated by advanced economies.

India has not been invited to join pacts such as the U.S.-led 12 country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and is "not in a position to join," partly because its tariffs are not competitive.

"Clearly, we are not in a position to join mega agreements, neither have we been invited to join these mega agreements. But these mega-agreements give us a tremendous opportunity of creating an environment within the country for producing high quality products for reforming our standards, for updating ourselves on value chains and to strategise out trade relations," said Trade Secretary Rajeev Kher, adding that India's access to markets was likely to erode when such pacts take effect.