PREAMBLE

CONTEXT

For India to become a major player in world trade, an all encompassing, comprehensive view needs to be taken for the overall development of the country’s foreign trade. While increase in exports is of vital importance, we have also to facilitate those imports which are required to stimulate our economy. Coherence and consistency among trade and other economic policies is important for maximizing the contribution of such policies to development. Thus, while incorporating the existing practice of enunciating an annual Exim Policy, it is necessary to go much beyond and take an integrated approach to the developmental requirements of India’s foreign trade. This is the context of the new Foreign Trade Policy.

OBJECTIVES

Trade is not an end in itself, but a means to economic growth and national development. The primary purpose is not the mere earning of foreign exchange, but the stimulation of greater economic activity. The Foreign Trade Policy is rooted in this belief and built around two major objectives. These are:

(i) To double our percentage share of global merchandise trade within the next five years; and

(ii) To act as an effective instrument of economic growth by giving a thrust to employment generation.

STRATEGY

These objectives are proposed to be achieved by adopting, among others, the following strategies:

(i) Unshackling of controls and creating an atmosphere of trust and transparency to unleash the innate entrepreneurship of our businessmen, industrialists and traders.

(ii) Simplifying procedures and bringing down transaction costs.

(iii) Neutralizing incidence of all levies and duties on inputs used in export products, based on the fundamental principle that duties and levies should not be exported.

(iv) Facilitating development of India as a global hub for manufacturing, trading and services.

(v) Identifying and nurturing special focus areas which would generate additional employment opportunities, particularly in semi-urban and rural areas, and developing a series of ‘Initiatives’ for each of these.

(vi) Facilitating technological and infrastructural upgradation of all the sectors of the Indian economy, especially through import of capital goods and equipment, thereby increasing value addition and productivity, while attaining internationally accepted standards of quality.

(vii) Avoiding inverted duty structures and ensuring that our domestic sectors are not disadvantaged in the Free Trade Agreements/Regional Trade Agreements/Preferential Trade Agreements that we enter into in order to enhance our exports.

(viii) Upgrading our infrastructural network, both physical and virtual, related to the entire Foreign Trade chain, to international standards.

(ix) Revitalising the Board of Trade by redefining its role, giving it due recognition and inducting experts on Trade Policy.

(x) Activating our Embassies as key players in our export strategy and linking our Commercial Wings abroad through an electronic platform for real time trade intelligence and enquiry dissemination.

PARTNERSHIP :

The new Policy envisages merchant exporters and manufacturer exporters, business and industry as partners of Government in the achievement of its stated objectives and goals. Prolonged and unnecessary litigation vitiates the premise of partnership. In order to obviate the need for litigation and nurture a constructive and conducive atmosphere, a suitable Grievance Redressal Mechanism will be established which, it is hoped, would substantially reduce litigation and further a relationship of partnership.

The dynamics of a liberalized trading system sometimes results in injury caused to domestic industry on account of dumping. When this happens, effective measures to redress such injury will be taken.

ROADMAP:

This Policy is essentially a roadmap for the development of India’s foreign trade. It contains the basic principles and points the direction in which we propose to go. By virtue of its very dynamics, a trade policy cannot be fully comprehensive in all its details. It would naturally require modification from time to time. We propose to do this through continuous updation, based on the inevitable changing dynamics of international trade. It is in partnership with business and industry that we propose to erect milestones on this roadmap.

(KAMAL NATH)
MINISTER FOR COMMERCE & INDUSTRY
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

NEW DELHI
31ST AUGUST, 2004