Plan is to create separate agency to implement BharatTradeNet: DGFT

The Budget announcement to set up BharatTradeNet as a unified platform for trade documentation and financing solutions is an ambitious proposal and there is a plan to create a not-for-profit company to implement this project, a senior government official said on Tuesday.

Proposed on the lines of Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the platform will help in moving towards complete digitisation of the entire range of trade documentation and then allow seamless operability of different agencies which are involved in this, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Santosh Kumar Saranagi told reporters here.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said in the Budget speech that this will be set up as a unified platform for trade documentation and financing solutions and it will complement the Unified Logistics Interface Platform. 

 

"So this is a highly ambitious proposal but we are ambitioning to do something which is a UIDAI kind of programme in future...Idea is to create a separate agency because we need a very strong IT team and system architecture team. They should have the idea of a full trade ecosystem and how it operates. So we have suggested creating a Section 8 company for implementing this because this will have to interact with multiple agencies," Sarangi said.

These agencies include RBI, CBIC, banking systems, multiple shipping lines, ports and airports.

Whosoever is involved in international trade, "we will have to work with them. So we need an institutional mechanism to do that," he added.

At present, there are about 30 entities that are involved in trade documentation and financing arrangement and each one of them has its own portal and systems and the exporter or importer has to fill up about 5,000 odd data points when it navigates through different trade and finance ecosystems.

Still, a lot of work is carried out through papers.

"So we will move towards digitisation of the entire range of trade documentation and then allow seamless operability of different agencies which are involved in this," Sarangi said.

He said the idea is that different agencies like bankers, factory service providers, customs, FSSAI, EIC (Export Inspection Council) and labs will interact through one digital public infrastructure.

"For example in UPI, multiple agencies are involved in one transaction but UPI is providing an anonymised platform where your identity is not known to others but payment is being received," he added.

He said the project may take 2-3 years to take shape.

The BharatTradeNet would enable the digitisation of over 30 trade documents, such as Bills of Lading, Promissory Notes, for secure electronic issuance, transfer, and storage, where required.

Exporters and importers would be major beneficiaries as the platform would help in getting faster clearances and export credit access.

Besides, other segments that would benefit from the move included banks and NBFCs as they would get real-time trade finance data.

It will help convert critical trade documents like Bills of Lading, Letters of Credit, and Customs Declarations into secure digital formats; ensure real-time, secure data sharing between exporters, banks, regulatory authorities, and global trade networks; and help MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and exporters access loans and credit by integrating financial institutions into the system.

Besides, it would help automate compliance with global standards like UNCITRAL MLETR (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records), and UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe), ensuring smooth international transactions.

The absence of uniform development standards leads to duplicity, inefficiencies, and higher efforts as entities adopt disparate approaches.