Eyeing A Coherent Trade Promotion Strategy, Government To Revamp Commerce Department

Eyeing a more coherent trade promotion strategy, the commerce department is all set for a revamp, as official sources said that clearer targets and execution accountabilities will be the focus area.

According to the 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.

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, sources informed further.

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

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

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 centralised 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 $2 trillion exports by 2027," a commerce ministry statement said.

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

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