Govt seeks chamber inputs on negative list

The department of commerce and industry (DoC&I), government of India (GoI) is close to finalising the list of items to be included in the negative list for free trade.

The department of commerce officials met industry representatives in Kolkata today to receive their suggestion on the 1,761 items.

Participating in the 'Consultation with the Industry on FTA with Bimstec (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) countries' jointly organised by DoC&I and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) in association with Capexil, Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC), the Plastic Export Promotion Council (PEPC) and Indian Plastic Federation (IPF), Rajan S Ratna, director, regional and multilateral trade relations, department of commerce said, "We are in process of receiving inputs from the industry for finalising the items to be included in the negative list that is scheduled to be exchanged with other Bimstec members by first week of June."

After consultation with the industry, DoC&I will be placing a proposed list in the inter-ministerial meeting that will be held on 15th May, informed Ratna.

There were also discussion for working on a common criterion, based upon value of trade in last few years, that might be useful in choosing the items that would be kept in the negative list.