CALL US : 
WAPP : 
The Union Cabinet is expected to approve Thursday a policy to boost exports of agriculture commodities such as tea, coffee and rice and increase the country’s share in global agri trade, an official said.
The Union Cabinet is expected to approve Thursday a policy to boost exports of agriculture commodities such as tea, coffee and rice and increase the country’s share in global agri trade, an official said. The Commerce Ministry has sent the final agri export policy to the Cabinet. The proposed policy would focus on all aspects of agricultural exports including modernising infrastructure, standardisation of products, streamlining regulations, curtailing knee-jerk decisions, and focusing on research and development activities.
“The government will aim at a stable export policy for agricultural products. There will be an assurance that processed agri items and organic products will not be brought under the ambit of any kind of export restrictions such as imposition of minimum import price, export duty, export bans and quota restrictions,” the official said. The official added that the implementation of the policy will have an estimated financial implication of over Rs 1400 crore.
“The government will aim at a stable export policy for agricultural products. There will be an assurance that processed agri items and organic products will not be brought under the ambit of any kind of export restrictions such as imposition of minimum import price, export duty, export bans and quota restrictions,” the official said. The official added that the implementation of the policy will have an estimated financial implication of over Rs 1400 crore.
The states would be urged to reform their APMC (Agriculture Produce Market Committee) Acts and remove mandi taxes applicable on export-oriented goods. On the infrastructure front, the government would identify ports that are handling agri exports and perishable berths, agri jetties, railways wagons would be provided. Round-the-clock single window clearance would be extended for perishable exports and imports at Mumbai, Delhi and Kochi airports.
As part of the policy, the government is likely to undertake a detailed analysis to identify focus products based on five parameters — global trade, five-year impact potential, India’s current competitiveness, scope for value addition and future market potential. To promote value added products, the government would take certain steps including promotion of R&D and marketing of biscuits and confectionary, dehydrated onion, frozen vegetables, medicinal plants and essential oils.
The policy also aims at doubling agricultural shipments to over USD 60 billion by 2022. Agricultural products constitute over 10 per cent of the country’s total merchandise exports. The main commodities exported by India include tea, coffee, rice, cereals, tobacco, spices, cashew, oil meals, fruits and vegetables, marine products, meat, dairy and poultry products. Exports of value-added items are significantly low. India’s exports in 2017 were about USD 31 billion, which is over 2 per cent of the world agriculture trade.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Ganesh Kumar Gupta said a stable policy is fundamental to boost agri exports. “Switch on and off policy in the past has deprived India to be considered at a reliable supplier,” Gupta added.
Archives
New Delhi: India sought to revive discussions at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on recognition of educational qualifications and licences for professionals to provide services in other countries, called domestic regulation in trade parlance. New Delhi wants countries to ensure that their competent authorities take account of qualifications and licences acquired by other WTO members on the basis of equivalency of education, experience and examination requirements.
It has sought discussions and disciplines on licensing requirements and procedures, technical standards and qualification requirements so that they do not constitute unnecessary barriers to trade in services.
“This is an effort by India to rejuvenate and reenergise (the topic) which has not seen discussions in 2018,” India said as it listed qualification requirements, licensing requirements and technical standards as barriers to Mode 4 service suppliers.
A group of 35 WTO members including China, the European Union, Australia, Japan and Russia had last year formed a plurilateral on services domestic regulation at the ministerial conference in Buenos Aires.
Mode 4 or movement of natural persons is one of the four ways through which services can be supplied internationally. It includes movement of natural persons such as independent professionals, and is of key interest of India. “This issue has moved to the plurilaterals but developed countries do not engage on Mode 4,” said an official in the know of the details.
India said that Mode 4 is the most important mode of export interest for most developing countries including least developed countries
“Unfortunately, it is most neglected and therefore needs facilitation through domestic regulation disciplines,” it told the organisation.
India had set the ball rolling for discussions through its submission two weeks ago in which it detailed the transparency requirements for all such barriers.
It has recommended procedures relating to appeals or reviews of applications, ways to amend or renew authorisation and licences to supply a service, the indicative timeframe for processing.
On the basis of an assessment of the current and evolving macroeconomic situation, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has kept the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) unchanged at 6.5 per cent. Consequently, the reverse repo rate under the LAF remains at 6.25 per cent, RBI said in a statement.
The marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate would also remain unchanged at 6.75 per cent, the central bank said in its fifth Bi-monthly Monetary Policy Statement of 2018-19.
“The decision of the MPC is consistent with the stance of calibrated tightening of monetary policy in consonance with the objective of achieving the medium-term target for consumer price index (CPI) inflation of 4 per cent within a band of +/- 2 per cent, while supporting growth,” the MPC resolution said.
The MPC noted that the benign outlook for headline inflation is driven mainly by the unexpected softening of food inflation and collapse in oil prices in a relatively short period of time. Excluding food items, inflation has remained sticky and elevated, and the output gap remains virtually closed.
The MPC also noted that even as escalating trade tensions, tightening of global financial conditions and slowing down of global demand pose some downside risks to the domestic economy, the decline in oil prices in recent weeks, if sustained, will provide tailwinds.
The acceleration in investment activity also bodes well for the medium-term growth potential of the economy. The time is apposite to further strengthen domestic macroeconomic fundamentals. In this context, fiscal discipline is critical to create space for and crowd in private investment activity.
The Reserve Bank of India Wednesday said an expert committee will be constituted to propose long-term solutions for the economic and financial sustainability of the MSME sector. The panel’s composition and its terms of reference will be finalised by the end of December, the RBI said in ‘Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies’.
The report of the panel will be submitted by the end of June 2019. Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) contribute significantly to employment, entrepreneurship and growth in the economy.
MSMEs remain, by their predominantly informal nature, vulnerable to structural and cyclical shocks, at times with persistent effects, the central bank said while announcing setting up the committee. “It is important to understand the economic forces and transactions costs affecting the performance of the MSMEs, while often the rehabilitation approach to the MSMEs stress has focused on deploying favourable credit terms and regulatory forbearances,” it said.
Earlier, the RBI’s Central Board had advised that it should consider a scheme for restructuring of stressed standard assets of MSME borrowers with aggregate credit facilities of up to Rs 250 million, subject to such conditions as are necessary for ensuring financial stability.
Signing of currency swap agreement between India and the UAE will help in boosting trade and investments between the two countries, a commerce and industry ministry official said Wednesday. With this arrangement, the two countries allow trading in their own currency and payments to import and export trade at pre-determined exchange rate without bringing in a third benchmark currency like the US dollar, the official added.
The idea for the agreement was first mooted by Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu and it was discussed at length in the sixth meeting of the UAE – India High Level Joint Task Force on Investments held in Mumbai in October. The commerce ministry was continuously pursuing the matter with the UAE authorities.
The ministry has also established a special UAE desk to facilitate investments and resolve issues relating to UAE Investments in India. The pact will further boost bilateral trade and investments between the countries, the official added. The bilateral trade stood at USD 50 billion in 2017-18. India has attracted USD one billion in FDI (foreign direct investment) during that fiscal.
India and the European Union does not have a free trade pact, but that hasn’t stopped one of its member nations from going all out to facilitate trade with India.
Kristian Vanderwaeren, Director-general Administration Customs & Excise, Federal Ministry of Finance for Customs and Excise, Belgium, was in Mumbai on Tuesday to address a workshop on cold chain logistics organised by the Port of Antwerp, underlining the importance Belgium attaches to the smooth flow of trade between the two nations. This the excerpts from the conversation.
Are you pitching for a free trade pact between India and EU?
I regret that until now there is no free trade agreement between the EU and India. And, in a world which is uncertain, with a lot of tension, and given the historical relationship what we as Europe and Great Britain have with India, I found it rather strange why we don’t have a free-trade agreement. So, I’ve been talking to people here and I think it is important that we bring over the message to our politicians that they really should make an effort on a European and Indian level to get to a free-trade agreement. Free trade agreement is important because it creates the framework for a better cooperation.
There is a third reason why I came here. Given the fact there is no free trade agreement, how can we foster and ameliorate cooperation between our countries.
And there, we are looking at India and the Port of Antwerp, how can we foster cooperation between Customs and trade. How we can promote smooth exchange of goods with lesser number of inspections taking place. We already offer a lot of facilitation for export into Antwerp. I would like to look and see companies exporting from here to Belgium and companies exporting from Belgium to India, how together with the Indian Customs we can exchange best practices and move forward together. For that reason, I had discussions with the New Delhi headquarters of the Customs and they were willing to start a discussion and dialogue .
What other areas of cooperation are you looking at with Indian Customs and trade?
Another area where we cooperate with the Indian Customs is the IT platform. Indian Customs is pushing very hard on digitalisation and is investing a lot in scanning infrastructure. There, we are looking to set up a cooperation for exchange of best practices between the Customs authorities of the two countries.
In Europe, free trade or negotiations on free trade are done on a European level, the regulations are European, however the implementation and inspections are done on a national level.
Belgium is trying to proactively come out to help understand the problems Indian exporters are facing, to try and see how best you can resolve them without bending the law. This shows our willingness to facilitate compliant trade to help and to be open and transparent.
How will Brexit impact trade between India and Europe?
Brexit is going to have a huge impact. Now, Britain is part of the Customs Union. There are no Customs formalities for goods coming/going between the United Kingdom and Belgium on the Continent.
Rajesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, Higher Technical Education & Skill Development Department, Government of Jharkhand, Wednesday invited industry to capitalise on the industry-oriented policies for industrial development and investment promotion framed by the state government.
The Jharkhand Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy of 2016 aims at converting the state into a favoured destination for investors.
Likewise, the Jharkhand Textile, Apparel and Footwear Policy and the Film Policy have created the right kind of environment for sustainable growth of industries.
Speaking at ‘ENGAGE – Employers Network for Generating Aspirational & Gainful Employment: Skill in Jharkhand: Skilling for Future’, organised by FICCI and Jharkhand Government, Sharma enumerated the steps taken by the state government for creating a skills ecosystem and said that the state aims to train and skill 20 lakh people by 2022, thus touching the lives of 20% of its youth.
Rajesh Agrawal, Joint Secretary & CVO, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, GoI urged industry to take advantage of the ‘demographic bulge’ that is more pronounced in Jharkhand by investing in skilling and training the required workforce. Jharkhand has 70% of the population under 35 years with the average age being 27 years.
He said that investors need to view skill development from the standpoint of productivity gains from skilling instead of focusing on the perceived benefits of employing low-cost labour.
He added that there was a need to evangelise apprenticeships of six months to a year for building a short-term skilling ecosystem.
In this context, he commended the Vocational Education & Training (VET) systems adopted by Korea for reaping the benefits of productivity increases.
Devendra Kumar Tiwari, Development Commissioner, Government of Jharkhand, said that skilling the workforce for Industry 4.0 was imperative not just for growth but for making Indian industry competitive. This was important as export growth in the future will be led by export of manpower, he added.
He said that Jharkhand today boasts of an industrial culture that is evidenced by the absence of industrial strikes and loss of man-days. This climate was being improved by a decisive government through its policies.
The government has decided to convert two state-run jute mills into textile factories under public private partnership.
The cabinet committee on economic affairs yesterday in a meeting approved the proposal of the textiles and jute ministry.
Ahmed Bawani Jute Mills in Demra and Kaderia Jute Mills in Tongi will be developed under the PPP initiative, said Nasima Begum, additional secretary to the cabinet division, after the meeting.
She said the committee has given the final approval to the PPP contract document.
Private sector operators will run the mills under design-build-operate-maintain-transfer method for 30 years. The mill in Demra has been awarded to a consortium of Tanzia Fashions Ltd, which will pay a contract fee of Tk 2.5 crore annually.
The mill in Tongi has been given to a consortium of Orion Ltd, which will give the government Tk 5.20 crore annually as contract fee.
The cabinet committee also approved a proposal for signing a contract with Belgium-based JAN-DNUAL for dredging of the Payra port. It will be implemented through a PPP initiative.
After the economic affairs committee meeting, another meeting of the cabinet committee on purchase was held where 22 proposals were approved.
After the meeting, Finance Minister AMA Muhith told reporters that there would be no meeting of the committees before the next national elections, scheduled to be held on December 30.
Muhith said if there was any emergency proposal for purchases, the ministry concerned would send it to him and it would be okayed later on getting the prime minister’s approval.
The purchase committee also approved a proposal for the import of 7 lakh tonnes of fertilisers.
Of the amount, Singapore-based M/S Wilsons Trading Private Ltd will supply 25,000 tonnes of urea at a rate of $379.87 per tonne while another 25,000 tonnes will be supplied by Abu Dhabi-based Zen Trade at a rate of $378.70 per tonne.
Proton Traders Ltd will supply 25,000 tonnes of urea at $362.21 per tonne and another 25,000 tonnes at $361.91 per tonne.
One lakh tonnes of diammonium phosphate fertiliser will be imported from Morocco at a rate of $545.75 per tonne alongside 2.5 lakh tonnes of triple super phosphate (TSP) fertiliser at a cost of $452.25 per tonne.
Besides, 2.5 lakh tonnes of TSP fertiliser will be imported from Tunisia at $458.25 per tonne.
The committee approved a proposal making Saif Powertech Ltd a terminal operator for container and cargo handing in the Chittagong port for six years. The port authority would give it Tk 310.30 crore.
The committee also approved the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) into becoming a consultant for preparing a detailed master plan of Payra sea port at a cost of Tk 124 crore. The university will carry out the task with the assistance of Royal Tuscany of Netherlands.
The committee gave a nod to a proposal to buy 40 diesel locomotives for Bangladesh Railway. M/S Progress Rail of the USA will supply the locomotives at a cost of Tk 1,123 crore.
Besides, the committee approved a proposal for increasing the contract value for Larsen & Toubro to set up a rail line from Khulna to Mongla port with Indian finance.
Initially the contract value was Tk 1,076.44 crore. Now it has been increased to Tk 1,367.66 crore.
The second edition of the Partnership for Clean Textile (PaCT II) has concluded its first year with seven organisations joining the campaign along with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
The PaCT II, the International Finance Corporation’s multi-stakeholder partnership to drive sustainability in Bangladesh’s textile sector, aims to work with more than 200 factories to adopt state-of-the-art efficiency and cleaner production practices to reduce water, energy, and chemical use across the textile value chain.
Five textile brands, namely VF Corp, PUMA, Levi Strauss & Co, TESCO and GAP Inc and two technology providers Jeanologia and Omera Solar have joined the campaign, the IFC said in a statement yesterday. Started in January 2018, with support from the governments of Denmark, Australia and the Netherlands, the PaCT II seeks to save 10.9 billion litres of water and 1.3 million megawatt hours of energy every year.
In the process, there will be 241,160 tonnes of green-house gases and 10,000 tonnes of chemical use avoided every year.
The successful first edition of the PaCT, which ran from 2013 to 2017, helped save 21.6 billion litres of water every year, which is the average annual water use for 840,000 people in Bangladesh.
The participating factories also saved 2.5 million megawatt hours of energy each year, equivalent to 5.4 percent of total national grid output in 2015-16.
“In Bangladesh, the textile manufacturing sector remains a strategic area of focus for the IFC,” Rana Karadsheh, IFC director for manufacturing, agribusiness and services for Asia, said at an event at the Radisson hotel in Dhaka.
“Our advisory programme, PaCT, has made a significant impact on changing the landscape of the sector through greater awareness of resource efficiency and better adoption of efficient technologies and manufacturing processes.”
Bangladesh is the second largest apparel exporter in the world, next only to China. Apparel exports account for 80 percent of the country’s exports and 12 percent of its gross domestic product.
“The BGMEA is happy to be a partner of the IFC. We are proud to say that Bangladesh not only has the most transparent garment industry, it is also one of the most sustainable garment industries in the world,” said Miran Ali, a director of the BGMEA.
The event consisted of panel discussions on emerging concepts in the industry such as circular economy and rooftop solar PV opportunities.
Speakers included Wendy Werner, country manager of the IFC for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal; Winnie Estrup Petersen, Danish ambassador; Harry Verweij, Dutch ambassador; and Jane Hardy, second secretary of the Australian high commission.
They said the second phase would significantly increase the scope of the programme by working with the entire textile value chain.
The Union textile ministry is working on a way to harmonise its export incentives with the World Trade Organization (WTO) guidelines.
Currently, the government offers incentives of two to four per cent under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS). In addition to production incentives such as interest subvention and the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme.
These incentives have been challenged at the WTO by the American government. One contention of critics is that India’s $3 trillion economy is quite unlike those of smaller countries in this region, such as Bangladesh, Vietnam or Pakistan, that require external incentives to compete in global markets. A WTO committee is reportedly examining the issue.
“The government is in the process of putting in place alternative schemes to promote export, which will improve the competitiveness of Indian products. These will replace schemes such as MEIS, the Export Promotion Capital Goods scheme, 100 per cent export oriented units, Special Economic Zones, etc. We have been given to understand that the level of support will not in any way be lowered in the alternative scheme,” said Ujwal Lahoti, chairman, Lahoti Overseas.
The Cotton Textile Export Promotion Council (Texprocil) under the ministry of commerce has engaged a consultancy firm, Ikdhvaj Advisers, to study alternative schemes which could be recommended. A committee has been formed for this. It has economist Veena Jha, Harsha Vardhana Singh (a former deputy director general at WTO and Jayant Dasgupta, a former ambassador to WTO. Their study will cover the entire value chain in the sector.
“The alternative scheme is set to address three broad areas. First, it should be linked with employment generation. Second, it should formalise the economy. Third, it should be a more acceptable concept than free-on-board value.
The committee is set to give its report by next week,” said Siddhartha Rajagopal, executive director at Texprocil. The idea is to devise schemes that cannot be challenged due to multiple interpretations by countries on the possible benefits to exporters. World trade in textile and clothing grew in 2017 by nearly four per cent over the previous year, to $756 billion. The growth in 2018 is expected to be similar. India registered 5.4 per cent growth in the sector last year, to $37.4 billion. Its share in world trade in textile and clothing this year is estimated at around five per cent. Our export is a seventh of China’s.
