Addressing students and faculties of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) here, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said the centre can also help in creating a skill set among students of the institute.
“Negotiations are going to be a very very important skill these days. When we do FTAs, negotiation skills are a very important tool, so we have to create one centre for negotiations. But that centre is not just supposed to do FTA (free trade agreement) negotiations, we have to get into the broader framework of negotiations, which also involves mergers and acquisitions and other business deals,” Barthwal said.
This centre will not be only for the government, but it will also be able to create skill sets among IIFT students.
“So, that is the initiative, we will be taking up,” he said while launching MBA (International Business) and MBA (Business Analytics) 2024-26 Programmes at the IIFT.
The secretary also asked the institute to interact with the two other sister institutions – the Centre for WTO Studies and the Centre for Trade and Investment Law.
The ranking of IIFT has to be improved, and students, faculty and alumni have to work together for that, he added.
The commerce ministry’s IIFT rankings slipped three notches to 27th under the management category in the NIRF ranking 2023.
