FTP may miss March 31 deadline yet again

24 Mar 2015 Evaluate

With the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2014-19 all set to expire March 31, 2014, the government is may yet again miss the deadline. The policy, which was last set to expire in March last year was extended by a year as the government did not announce a new FTP. The new policy had been expected to be put in place quickly after the Narendra Modi government came to power in May 2014. But the finance ministry’s reluctance to give sizeable funds for export sops forced the commerce ministry to delay it to the next fiscal year.

However, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman expressed hopes of coming up with the policy soon. She also dismissed claims of exports falling substantially on account of delay in putting up new FTP. Justifying this she said that exports suffered even when the FTP was explicit and was there in place between 2009 and 2014. Further, the Minister in an attempt to reason out the delay in FTP said that the new five-year FTP with a ‘Make in India’ focus needed comprehensive deliberations on various sectors and exporting destinations.

She underlined that the new policy had to be out-of-the-box and was expected to support India’s exports, which could be done by assessing various sectors and their capability and new and traditional markets of the world.

Further, Commerce Minister pointed that the FTP would not lay emphasis on subsidies and incentives to exporters and would rather make it easier for them to do business. She highlighted that her ministry has already reduced the number of mandatory documents required for import and export of goods to three in each case from close to a dozen at present.

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