Days after chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian termed India's trade policy as ambivalent, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that India has a clear picture in its way to move ahead on the trade front and is certainly not aimless when it comes to trade negotiations.
The minister further said that India is not an obstructionist in the 16 country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), but will not yield on the offers it has made for opening up goods and services in the agreement and will keep pursuing them. In fact, in RCEP, India's offer on Mode 3 services that allow foreign commercial presence is more liberal than other nations' as it has apprehensions only on opening up financial, insurance and legal services.
Referring to change in the order of trade across the world, Sitharaman said that tariff is not a very powerful tool any longer and one must understand trade from a non-tariff route. She also spoke about how G-20 countries are getting more defensive about their exports and imports and how India has become defensive on steel import duty.