Elements of Agriculture Export Policy with Vision of New India of USD 5 Trillion Economy

Vision of a New India

The Ministry of Commerce & Industry is creating an action-oriented plan which will highlight specific sector level interventions to bolster India’s march towards becoming a USD 5 trillion economy before 2025. The focused plans will be on boosting services sector contribution to USD 3 trillion, manufacturing to USD 1 trillion and Agriculture to USD 1 trillion. 

The Ministry has created a corpus of USD 1 billion to boost 12 champion sectors in services and it is working on releasing the New Industrial Policy keeping in mind the demands of the future. Further all efforts of the Department of Commerce, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion have been towards achieving the goal of India becoming USD 5 trillion economy. 

12 Champion Sectors

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister approved the proposal of the Department of Commerce to give focused attention to 12 identified Champion Services Sectors for promoting their development, and realizing their potential.  

These include Information Technology & Information Technology enabled Services (IT and ITeS), Tourism and Hospitality Services, Medical Value Travel, Transport and Logistics Services, Accounting and Finance Services, Audio Visual Services, Legal Services, Communication Services, Construction and Related Engineering Services, Environmental Services, Financial Services and Education Services. 

Aim: 

1. This initiative will enhance the competitiveness of India's service sectors through the implementation of focused and monitored Action Plans, thereby promoting GDP growth, creating more jobs and promoting exports to global markets.

2. Services sector in India has immense employment potential, it will enhance the competitiveness of India's service sectors through the implementation of focused and monitored Action Plans, thereby creating more jobs in India, contributing to a higher GDP and exports of services to global markets. 

3. As the Services sector contributes significantly to India's GDP, exports and job creation, increased productivity and competitiveness of the Champion Services Sectors will further boost exports of various services from India. 

4. Embedded services are an important part of 'Goods' as well. Thus, competitive services sector will add to the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector.

5. The share of India's services sector in global services exports was 3.3% in 2015 compared to 3.1% in 2014. Based on this initiative, a goal of 4.2 % has been envisaged for 2022.

6. The share of services in Gross Value Added (GVA) was about 53% for India in 2015-16 (61% of construction services). A goal of achieving a share of services in GVA of 60% (67% including construction services) has also been envisaged by the year 2022 

Agriculture Export Policy, 2018 

The Commerce Ministry has formulated India’s first ever Agricultural Export Policy with a focused plan to boost India’s agricultural exports to USD 60 billion by 2022. 

Thereby assisting the Agriculture Ministry in achieving its target of USD 100 billion and to integrate Indian farmers and the high quality agricultural products with global value chains and to double India’s share in world agriculture. 

Vision: 

The vision of the Agriculture Export Policy is to harness the export potential of Indian agriculture through suitable policy instruments and to make India a global power in agriculture and raise farmers’ income. 

Elements of Agriculture Export Policy: 

The recommendations in the Agriculture Export Policy are in two categories, 

1. Strategic  
2. Operational

Strategic: It Includes, 

(a) Policy measures 
(b) Infrastructure and logistics support 
(c) Holistic approach to boost exports 
(d) Greater involvement of State Governments in agri exports 

Operational: It includes, 

(a) Focus on Clusters 
(b) Promoting value added exports 
(c) Marketing and promotion of “Brand India” 
(d) Attract private investments into production and processing 
(e) Establishment of strong quality regimen 
(f) Research & Development 
(g) Miscellaneous 

Promotion of Trade: 

Commerce Ministry is working closely with the Finance Ministry to ease credit flow to the export sector, especially small exporters to ensure adequate availability of funds to them. The Commerce Minister has identified 15 strategic overseas locations where the Trade Promotion Organisations (TPOs) are proposed to be created.  

India has great potential to generate greater volumes of export with these countries but at present trade with them stands as single digit numbers.  

The locations where TPOs are proposed are- Astana (Kazakhstan), Beijing (China) Cape town (South Africa), Dubai (UAE), Frankfurt (Germany), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Jakarta (Indonesia) Lima (Peru), London (U.K.),  Melbourne (Austrialia), Mexico City (Mexico), Moscow (Russia), New York (USA), Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Tokyo (Japan). 

Exports on the Rise: 

India’s exports clocked highest growth in last 6 years. Sector specific interventions, focused export promotion initiatives, greater transparency and quick resolution of issues have led to an impressive export growth of 14.76% in 2017-18 (Oct-Sept) over previous year. 

The Department of Commerce is making all efforts to diversify India’s export basket region wise and commodity wise.  

Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are a means of correcting India’s balance of trade. The USA bilateral negotiations are on and with China, India has held three inter-ministerial delegations in June, August and November 2018 led by the Department of Commerce to pursue market access issues with Ministry of Commerce China (MOFCOM). 

General Administration of Custom China (GACC) has approved total 24 Indian rice mills for exporting non-basmati rice to China and the first consignment of 100 tonnes of white rice (5% broken) was shipped on 28 Nov’18 and 30 Nov’18. 

In October 2018 another 23 tonnes of rice was exported to China followed by 260 tonnes in November 2018. Export of rapeseed meal to China, which was discontinued in 2012, has been opened up now with consistent and continuous efforts of Department of Commerce and GACC has approved five rapeseed mills to supply rapeseed meal to China.  

The GACC teams have also visited India to inspect soybean meal mills and pomegranate orchards and pack houses in December 2018. China will also begin importing 50,000 tonnes of raw sugar from India early next year.