Commerce to Go Shift to Export Promotion Mode as Customs Take Over Compliance Burden

· Piyush Goyal Reviews Revamping of the Department of Commerce to make it Future Ready

· Strengthening the Department expected to enable the creation of the ecosystem to achieve robust and sustained high export growth

· Calls for consistent strengthening of trade and investment promotion bodies

· The Department to be Scaled up and Infused with ‘New Age’ Capabilities

[ABS News Service/21.02.2022]

The Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal chaired a meeting focused on the revamping and fortification of the Department of Commerce to make it future ready. Strengthening the Department is expected to enable the creation of the ecosystem to achieve robust and sustained high export growth.

Speaking at the meeting, Piyush Goyal called for the consistent strengthening of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and other organizations and bodies that promote investment and trade. He opined that constant monitoring of exports was crucial in ensuring the achievement of targets on time.

It may be noted that there are several emerging opportunities in global trade owing to shifts in global trade dynamics like rapid growth of services and disruptive potential of climate change. There is thus an imminent need to proactively develop exports and build India’s brand in global trade.

The revamping of the Commerce Department is aimed at further building on its strategic direction and aspirations for the next decade. There is also a need for scaling up and re-engineering the operation model with enhanced 'new-age' capabilities and to move from inherent traditional roles to new roles.

The revamped Department to have a more coherent trade promotion strategy with clear targets and execution accountabilities. There will be a Strengthened negotiation ecosystem with right expertise and robust end-to-end processes with clearly defined focus areas and institutions. It aspires to achieve an optimal mix of talent with specialists and generalists sourced from across private and government sectors. The Department will have an agile setup responsive to market opportunities and exporter needs via interlinkages across bodies. There will also be synergized branding for India across all domains highlighting clear priority areas.

To this end, a project was undertaken to design a future ready Department of Commerce. Certain key recommendations were made by the project. A dedicated 'Trade Promotion Body' to drive overall promotion strategy, export targets and execution is proposed to be set up. A stronger active role for missions in Trade Promotion for market intel, leads generation & localized research has been envisaged. Strengthening Negotiations via multi-skilled negotiation teams and separation between bilateral and WTO negotiations has been envisioned.

It has also been proposed to set up a 'Trade Remedies Review Committee' Including Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Finance and line ministries for transparency in investigations outcomes. Centralization and digitization of trade facilitation processes has been recommended to drive ease of compliance and scheme administration. Rehauling data and analytics ecosystem via centralized data management and embedded analytics capabilities in Department of Commerce has been proposed. A concerted push to strengthen Brand India and re-enforces trade priorities is in the works.

The meeting was attended by Mr. BVR Subrahmanyam, Secretary, Department of Commerce, Mr. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, Ms. Rachna Shah, Additional Secretary, Mr. Santosh Kumar Sarangi, Director General, DGFT, Mr. Prashant Kumar Singh, CEO, GeM, Mr. Anant Swarup, Joint Secretary, Mr. Darpan Jain, Joint Secretary, Mr. Manish Chadha, Joint Secretary and other officials.