Revamping of commerce dept on anvil for more coherent trade promotion strategy

New Delhi: The government is planning to revamp the commerce department which will have a more coherent trade promotion strategy with clear targets and execution accountabilities, an official statement said on Sunday.

Under the plan, there is a proposal to set up a dedicated trade promotion body and a trade remedies review committee.

The commerce ministry also said that there will be a strengthened negotiation ecosystem with right expertise and robust end-to-end processes with clearly defined focus areas and institutions in the revamped department.

"It aspires to achieve an optimal mix of talent with specialists and generalists sourced from across private and government sectors. The department will have an agile setup responsive to market opportunities and exporter needs via interlinkages across bodies. There will also be synergized branding for India across all domains highlighting clear priority areas," the ministry said.

It added that the revamping is aimed at further building on its strategic direction and aspirations for the next decade.

There is also a need for scaling up and re-engineering the operation model with enhanced 'new-age' capabilities and to move from inherent traditional roles to new roles, it said.

For this, a project was undertaken to design a future ready department of commerce.

A dedicated 'Trade Promotion Body' to drive overall promotion strategy, export targets and execution is proposed to be set up and a stronger active role for missions in trade promotion for market intelligence, leads generation and localized research has been envisaged, it said.

"Strengthening negotiations via multi-skilled negotiation teams and separation between bilateral and WTO (World Trade Organisation) negotiations has been envisioned," it said.

It has also been proposed to set up a 'Trade Remedies Review Committee' including ministry of commerce and industry, ministry of finance and line ministries for transparency in investigations outcomes.

Further centralisation and digitisation of trade facilitation processes has been recommended to drive ease of compliance and scheme administration.

Rehauling the data and analytics ecosystem via centralized data management and embedded analytics capabilities in the department has also been proposed.

"A concerted push to strengthen Brand India and re-enforces trade priorities is in the works....The strengthening of the department is expected to facilitate the creation of the ecosystem necessary to achieve the target of USD 2 trillion exports by 2027," it said.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has chaired a meeting focused on the revamping to make the department future ready.

Goyal called for the consistent strengthening of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and other organizations and bodies that promote investment and trade.

"It may be noted that there are several emerging opportunities in global trade owing to shifts in global trade dynamics like rapid growth of services and disruptive potential of climate change. There is thus an imminent need to proactively develop exports and build India's brand in global trade," the ministry said. 

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