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Five principles to revamp commerce dept for achieving $2 trillion exports by 2030: Goyal
New Delhi: The Union government has decided to restructure the commerce department, making it future-ready to achieve a $2 trillion export target by 2030, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said, highlighting five guiding principles behind the exercise
New Delhi: The Union government has decided to restructure the commerce department, making it future-ready to achieve a $2 trillion export target by 2030, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said, highlighting five guiding principles behind the exercise.
Saying that the restructuring plan is inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) and to make India a hub for global exports, Goyal highlighted the five pillars of the revamp exercise – enhancing India’s share in global trade, its leadership role in bilateral and multilateral forums, democratisation of trade activities, creating 100 Indian brands as global champions, and setting up economic zones.
The minister elaborated on each of the objectives.
“The goal is increasing India’s share in global trade, particularly our share in exports and consequently increasing the share of our exports to our GDP,” he said.
On the second pillar, he said India must “assume leadership role in multilateral organisations like WTO (World Trade Organisation). And many other organisations of which we are part. Also expand our engagement, bilateral engagement through free trade agreements (FTAs)… with developed countries and other countries”.
The third pillar, he said, is important “so that we can have a greater role for MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sector, farmers and agri sector, fishermen through the marine exports, animal husbandry through milk and similar processed food products, weavers, craftsmen -- all of them becoming part of international trade”.
“Fourth, we want to create 100 Indian brands as global champions. The PM desires to see large Indian multinationals, which can play an increasingly important role, not only giving boost to the Indian economy creating huge amount of jobs in India but also strengthening our image across the world,” Goyal said.
“And lastly, the fifth. We are looking at setting up economic zones or industrial hubs across the country which will strengthen the manufacturing base and the service base of the economy, provide plug and play infrastructure, and encourage greater investments to come to India,” he added.
Alluding to the Modi government’s vision of making India a developed economy in next 25 years, he said: “If India has to become a developed nation when we turn 100 in 2047, there can be no doubt that foreign trade will play a very important role in making this happen.”
Addressing the nation from the rampart of the Red Fort on August 15, the Prime Minister envisioned a 25-year road map for transforming India into a developed nation by making the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan a mass movement and resolved to make India a developed country by 2047.
Goyal said that officials in the commerce and industry ministry are working on a restructuring plan to envisage what should the department of commerce look like to be able to meet the needs of a developed country. “And as an immediate task to take the $675 billion to $2 trillion, that means 3x, by 2030. It will change the way India engages with the world… This is only the export figure, there will also be corresponding import figure… we will be among top three or four nations in world trade or in our contribution to world trade,” he said.
