September 23, 2020: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal informed Lok Sabha on Monday that the government has implemented several measures including tariff and non-tariff measures to safeguard the interest of the country’s private and public sector firms and to enable them to sell their products in global markets at competitive prices.
“Tariff and non-tariff measures have been taken to regulate nonessential import of goods and services. Appropriate use of trade remedies by way of safeguard, countervailing and anti-dumping duties have been used to protect domestic manufacturers,” Goyal said in a written reply to a question on decline in India’s manufacturing sector.
“The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 has severely impacted more than 196 countries across the globe including some of the major players like the USA, European Union, UK, and India,” he said.
A common digital platform for Certificate of Origin has been launched to facilitate trade and increase Free Trade Agreements utilization by exporters. He also said the government is promoting districts as export hubs.
In a separate reply, he said Indian pharma companies have secured 31% of the market authorizations granted by USFDA in 2019 -20, which shows that Indian companies continue to be able to introduce new products.
TEA EXPORTS
The export of organic tea has declined marginally by 99.78 M.T (4.63%) during April- August 2020-21 over the corresponding period of the previous year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Parliament was informed Monday. India exported $ 16.9 million worth organic tea in the April-August period of FY21. Exports were $49.71 million in FY20.
“It is estimated that with the improvement in the Covid situation worldwide, the demand for tea and export of organic tea will improve significantly,” Goyal said.
ECOMM POLICY
Comments from over 100 stakeholders (companies both Indian and foreign, Industry associations, think tanks, foreign governments) have been received on the draft e-Commerce Policy that was made public on February 23, 2019.
Goyal said that comments are received from time to time, on aspects of definition of e-commerce, role of customs in exports, anti-counterfeit and anti-piracy provisions, free cross border flow of data and related liability on e-commerce companies.
In a separate reply, the minister said that FDI from China was $743 million including investments in Startups through FDI Equity Inflow during from FY18 to FY20.
Source: Economic Times
