The ongoing US-China trade war has offered Indian exporters an excellent opportunity to help actualise $5 trillion economy mark as envisioned by the government, feels Som Parkash, Union Minister of State for Commerce & Industry.
He was talking in a session titled, Emerging opportunities to enlarge India’s exports to USA and China, which was organised by Ministry of commerce and FIEO.
Highlighting that global trade dynamics are rapidly changing and being WTO-compliant in coming days will mean that Indian exporters need to enhance their operational capabilities, the minister added that there was a need to increase focus on innovation. He added that that a commodity wise analysis has been carried out by the commerce ministry on the top products lines where India can be an excellent supplier to both China and the US.
“While China will do everything to negate the US trade influence in coming times, we have the opportunity to replace China in many categories in the US market. The government is there to protect the interests of the exporting fraternity, but looking at the changing trade patterns world over, Indian manufacturers need to come up with better and competitive product lines to outsmart competitors," he said.
On the occasion, Sharad K Saraf, President, FIEO said that if Indian exporters are not able to encash on the opportunities arising out of the US-China trade spat, the country would surely miss a significant opportunity towards achieving the $5 trillion mark.
“As a result of the US-China standoff, there is a great scope for increasing the volume of the leather and textile exports to these two countries. In the entire textile supply chain, including in yarn, fabric and apparel - we can increase our exports by 20-25 %, if few policy issues are addressed. These don't call for a big financial burden on the government,” Saraf added.
Highlighting that current FDI inflow into the country has been more due to China gradually losing manufacturing competitiveness than due to ongoing global tariff war, Ajay Sahai, DG & CEO,FIEO urged the government to further ease norms relating to FDI to enhance capacity building in high and medium technology sectors to support exports on long term basis with MSME as ancillaries. Such a step would facilitate MSMEs' hassle-free integration into Global Value Chains (GVCs), opined Sahai, besides pitching for a reduction in corporate tax to attract investment.
To better leverage on US-China trade war, Department of Commerce has carried out an extensive study identifying 203 tarrif lines for increasing exports to the US and 151 to China.
Published On : 31-07-2019
Source : Economic Times
