|
Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, is scheduled to announce the Annual Supplement to the Foreign Trade Policy here on 8th April, 2005.
Extensive consultations have been held with the trade and industry, including export promotion councils, chambers of commerce, trade associations and all other stakeholders and their inputs taken into account in fine-tuning the Foreign Trade Policy, especially with regard to simplification of procedures, reduction of transaction costs and liberalisation of the regulatory framework for foreign trade.
The first-ever comprehensive Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) was announced by Shri Kamal Nath on 31st August, 2004 with a five year framework (2004-09). As the Minister had pointed out, the FTP takes an integrated view of the overall development of India’s foreign trade and has a two-fold objective. One, to double India’s percentage share of global merchandise trade by 2009. And, secondly, to act as an effective instrument of economic growth by giving a thrust to employment generation, especially in semi-urban and rural areas.
India’s merchandise exports in the eleven months (April 2004-February 2005) of the current financial year were valued at around US $ 70 billion with a record growth of over 27%. Commenting on the export growth registered this year so far, Shri Kamal Nath had said that “more than exchange rate variations, the significant increase in exports during the current financial year has been on account of the growing competitiveness of the Indian manufacturing sector and the vigorous export-led growth strategy followed by the government for doubling India’s share in global merchandise trade in the next five years”.
The Annual Supplement to the Foreign Trade Policy to be announced by the Minister will be available on the Internet and can be accessed at the following website addresses: http://commerce.nic.in and http://dgft.delhi.nic.in immediately after its release. In addition, the Foreign Trade Policy Annual Supplement etc., will also be available on the website of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) at: http://pib.nic.in
SB/MRS
|
