Thanking the Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, Rajkumar said that the new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) will bring transformative changes in India’s trade by bringing greater trade facilitation through technology, automation, and continuous process re-engineering and will pave the way for India to take care of the various emerging global and economic challenges.
Rajkumar said that under the guidance of the Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, India is expected to cross a record US$ 760 billion in exports during the current fiscal and with the new FTP in place, India will surely achieve US$ 2 trillion in exports by 2030. He further cited that Textile & Apparel is an important part of the Indian economy and contributes to about 8-9% of India’s total merchandise exports. Logistics time plays an important role in the success of any T&A export business. Under the new FTP, online approvals without physical interference will reduce the processing time from the current time of as long as 1 month to just 1 day and will act as a game changer for the Textile & Apparel Industry.
He further informed that the new provision of Rupee Payment to be accepted under the FTP scheme will be an effective step towards the internationalization of the Rupee and will help boost India’s textile trade with partners like Bangladesh, Russia, Sri Lanka, etc. The inclusion of 4 new districts of Export Excellence for Apparel & Handi-crafts products will surely enhance the export potential of these clusters which have proven competitiveness in the manufacturing of these products.
Rajkumar further said that the extension of the Special Advance Authorization Scheme which is extended to the export of the Apparel & Clothing Sector on a self-declaration basis was a long-awaited facilitation measure and will surely facilitate prompt execution of export orders. Additionally, the new Amnesty scheme which is offering a one-time settlement of default in export obligation by Advance Authorization and EPCG authorization holders for a limited period will prove to be extremely beneficial for the Indian Textile & Apparel Industry.
He informed that of late India has signed several Trade Agreements with various countries and many others are underway. The revamping of the e-Certificate of Origin platform proposed – to provide for self-certification of CoOs as well as automatic approval of CoOs, wherever feasible, will give a new boost to these FTAs and the Industry will be able to make further utilization of these trade agreements.
Besides these various other initiatives such as the Reduction in user charges for MSMEs under AA and EPCG, Paperless filing of export obligation discharge applications, capacity building at the district level, Infrastructure and logistics development intervention, Facilitation for E-Commerce exports are taking care of the industry’s demand.
He concluded by saying that the new FTP has the right mix of policy interventions and procedural simplifications to address the challenges of time & transaction cost and it will surely pave the way for achieving the Vision of the “Make in India” & “Make for World” laid down by the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi ji.