Govt reconstitutes Board of Trade, first meeting on Apr 6

The newly constituted Board of Trade (BoT), a top advisory body on external commerce, is expected to meet on April 6 to discuss on the ways to boost exports.
The BoT, which has been reconstituted recently, is expected to deliberate on ways to improve exports in the meeting, an official said.
The board is headed by Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while the members include Apollo Tyres CMD Onkar Kanwar, Hero MotoCorp MD Pawan Munjal, ICICI Bank Ltd MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, Biocon MD Kiran Majumdar Shaw, Dr Reddy's MD Satish Reddy, HCL Technologies Chairman Shiv Nadar, Mahindra Group MD Anand Mahindra, ITC Chairman Y C Deveshwar and Ashok Leyland MD R Seshasayee.

The 31 ex-officio members include president of chambers like CII and Ficci, chairman of export promotion councils and commodity boards. Secretaries of 13 departments including Revenue, Commerce and External Affairs are official members of the board.
The terms of reference of the BoT includes reviewing export performance of various sectors, identify constraints and suggest industry specific measures to optimize export earnings.
It also includes advising the government on policy measures for preparation and implementation of both short and long term plans for increasing exports in the light of emerging national and international economic scenarios.
Falling for the 15th month in a row, exports dipped 5.66 per cent in February to USD 20.73 billion due to contraction in shipments of petroleum and engineering goods amid tepid global demand.