Q.12 India has tried to give a new impetus to its trade in recent years—briefly highlight the major latest steps taken by the GoI in this regard.

Ans. By mid-2016, the GoI took several new initiatives to facilitate trade, mainly aimed at adopting internationally best practices—

• e-Filing & e-Payment started. Mandatory documents required for export-import has also been cut down to just three each (international benchmarks).

• single window and online facility for customs clearance put in place— 24x7 facility. (to cut time and cost of doing business).

• aim to move towards 24x7 paperless environment of trade.

• simplification of ‘aayat niryat’ forms, bringing in clarity in different provisions, removing ambiguities and enhancing electronic governance

—a mobile application also launched by the DGFT (Director General of Foreign Trade) by late 2015.

• for training/outreach, the ‘Niryat Bandhu Scheme’ launched aimed at Skill India.

• a Council for Trade Development and Promotion (CTDP) launched in July 2015, aimed at ensuring participation of states/ union territories (UTs) to enhance trade-enabling environment and for making them active partners in boosting India’s exports.

• the state/UTs to develop their export strategy, appoint export commissioners, address infrastructure constraints restricting movement of goods, facilitate refund of value- added tax (VAT)/octroi/state-level cess, address other issues relating to various clearances and build capacity of new exporters in order to promote exports.

India’s economic diplomacy has gathered a new momentum in past few years. World economies together with the international and regional economic agencies are taking India as a major source of global growth. In wake of this India needs to scale up its external sector governance paradigm.