The ministry of commerce and industry has identified 12 countries for trade and investment promotion road shows in the coming months, and has decided to go big on marketing events globally as part of a major plan of action to push faltering exports, a senior official said Wednesday. The road shows and marketing blitz are part of a plan that has been drafted by a task force of officials of Department of Commerce, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Invest India and Indian Missions abroad.
The countries where the action will be concentrated include the US, Brazil, Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, UK, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Russia, the official said.
Before zeroing in on the target countries the task force had done an in-depth analysis of export-import trends, outbound investments trends and strategic engagements with over 20 countries.
Out of the entire basket of exports from India, eight to nine commodity groups have been identified for the push in these markets. Some of the commodities include food, electronics and engineering.
India has for long expressed its intention to be part of the global supply chains, especially in high-technology areas like electronics and information technology.
“World trade is happening in value chains and for that manufacturing is required. The focus of the plan is whatever we make in India should have an export orientation,” he said.
The new approach to trade comes at a time when exports have been in the negative territory for the last five months. In May, the latest month for which data is available, exports contracted by 10.3% on-year to $34.98 billion. The decline led to an increase in trade deficit during the month to a five-month high of $22.12 billion.
In the first two months for the fiscal 2023-24 exports were down 11.41% to $69.72 billion.
As these 12 focus countries are also a big source of Foreign Direct Investment in the world and India, channels of communications would be opened with some of the biggest companies there to encourage them to deepen their engagement with India, he added.
“The idea is that both trade and investment strategy should be working in sync,” the official added.
The plan also involves sending teams from the Department of Commerce and Niti Aayog to the big global trade exhibitions where they would be organising buyer-seller meets. The plan also involves approaching 10 biggest organisers of trade exhibitions in the world and mounting large scale events in India too.
The new exhibition grounds of Indian Trade Promotion Organisation are nearing completion and in coming months some big exhibitions and buyer-seller meets are being planned.