Activities - GoG-AMA Centre for International Trade

The gem and jewellery industry of Gujarat has welcomed the relief measures announced under the Foreign Trade Policy. These would give a boost to exports and also help in making India a global diamond trading hub.

While unveiling the new policy Commerce minister Anand Sharma announced inclusion of duty draw back on gold jewellery exports, which will neutralise duty incidence on them. The move will enable exporters to source the gold from the open market, fabricate jewllery from it and export the jewllery. They then claim the import paid on such gold.
g The Minister of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Anand Sharma, held discussions with South Africa’s Deputy President, Mr. Kgalema Motlanthe, on improving economic relations between the two countries here recently.

The discussions reportedly covered key aspects of bilateral relations and steps being taken “to consolidate and diversify the strategic and economic partnership between the two countries”.
India has put in place a draft economic and business cooperation Agreement with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to further strengthen trade ties between two blocs. Later a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and Arab countries is expected to follow.

This has been indicated by Minister of State for External Affairs, Dr. Shashi Tharoor while releasing a 2009 Special Publication on Arab World brought out by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

GCC and India had been closely negotiating economic and business cooperation agreement for long and now gradually the GCC’s and Arab League of Nations is becoming closer trading partner of India, replacing China and even US.

The two way trade between India and Arab League of Nations is estimated to exceed over US$ 500 billion in next few years as India’s trade with entire Arab league has already exceeded US$ 150 billion.
Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard visit to India in September will take new India’s trade relations with New Delhi to “a higher level”.

Despite the global recession and drought conditions prevailing in the country, agricultural exports are expected to double to $ 18 billion by 2014 from $ 9 billion now, according to the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda) Chairman, Mr. Asit Tripathy.

The difficult conditions notwith-standing, agri exports have yielded Rs 39,461 crore during 2008-09, as against Rs 31,712 crore in 2007-08, registering an increase of 25 per cent, figures released by Apeda showed.
Unlike the software and handicraft industry, agricultural products are not US dependent; hence, the agri exports have not been affected.

“The Gulf countries are the key rising market for us and there is huge opportunity for greater export of fruits and vegetables to these countries,” Mr. Tripathy claimed.

After the government banned exports of non-Basmati rice last year, there were fears that rice exports could be affected. But exports picked up due to huge demand of Pusa-1121 variety of Basmati rice. Rice exports in 2008-09 fetched Rs 11,162 crore against Rs 11,755 crore achieved during 2007-08.
Fruits and vegetables exports grew by a phenomenal 128 per cent to Rs 3,552 crore in 2008-09, from just Rs 1,525 crore in 2007-08.

The recent signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and Korea is indeed a landmark achievement which can improve bilateral agreements in areas including but not limited to automobile, components, heavy engineering, electronics and electrical appliances.

At a time when the industry was feeling the heat owing to the slump in demand from traditional trading markets of US and Europe, the ‘Look East’ policy can help exporters to counter the effects of recession.

As per the agreement, South Korea will do away with duties on 93 percent of its industrial and agricultural products and India will reciprocate by eliminating duties on 85 percent of its goods. India has however excluded sensitive items like farm products, textile items and built up automobiles from tariff elimination commitments. These duties will be phased out on most of these products in the next couple of years.
The exim community now should take advantage of the recently signed India-Korea FTA and look at not only exploring the markets there, but also to expand their trade basket.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can look at partnerships with companies in Korea. India also has a competitive edge in areas like R&D services, consultancy services, printing and publishing services, telecommunication services, educational service and tourism amongst others. (SME Times)

India’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rose 8 percent to USD 2.58 billion in June over the corresponding month last year, said Ajay Shankar, Secretary in Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.

India’s Exports fell by 28 percent in July this year, for the tenth month in a raw, due to the ongoing global downturn. In July 2008 the exports totaled USD 18.4 billion.