Foreign Trade Policy and Major Development Concerns: Past Experience and the Way Forward Kritika Kapil CUTS International

Overview India’s Foreign Trade Policy Major development concerns Linking the concerns with the FTP Recommendations for future policy making 2

Foreign Trade Policy The underlying long term objective of the FTP is to promote exports and increase India’s competitiveness globally, leading to employment generation particularly in the labour-intensive sectors Objective common to both the old and new policies is to double India’s exports within 5 years 3

FTP Short-term objective: to stop and reverse declining trend of exports Both the long and short term objectives of the policy are to be achieved through: infrastructure improvement related to exports; transaction cost reduction and; providing full refund of all indirect taxes and levies 4

FTP The FTP also has special initiatives in the following areas: Market Diversification Technological Upgradation Support to status holders Green products Export products from North East 5

Based on the field studies done during the first two years of GRANITE, a few major development concerns have come to the fore. 6

Major Development Concerns Low economic literacy Low economic literacy Infrastructural bottlenecks Infrastructural bottlenecks Lack of training and skill generation, innovation and marketing strategies Lack of training and skill generation, innovation and marketing strategies Lack of efficient information dissemination about structural changes Lack of efficient information dissemination about structural changes Middlemen as exploiters Middlemen as exploiters 7

Linking the concerns to the FTP Most stakeholders of the opinion that FTP aimed at large farmers/producers/exporters Tendency of FTP to focus on incentives for exporters, instead of producers as well > numerous producers cater to single trader/exporter resulting in exploitation Lack of coordination between various levels of the government>implementation issues 8

The Way Forward Changes in policy formulation Changes in policy formulation Regulatory changes Regulatory changes Infrastructure Infrastructure Marketing Facilities Marketing Facilities Bridging information gaps Bridging information gaps Development of human resources Development of human resources 9

Thank You 10