Union finance and corporate affairs minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday described Kakinada as a fast emerging new age export hub in the country.
Inaugurating the third centre of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) in Kakinada, she asked the institute’s students to hone their negotiating skills to make India excel in international trade.
The finance minister said it is not enough to merely theorise and churn out data. IIFT students should be proactive and learn to think out of the box. They should be able to provide meaningful insights into international trade to the ministry and expand trade at the global level.
‘I often find that IIFT students are not providing the required insights but merely doing a copy-paste job. That is not enough. You should gain knowledge about how the Indian economy functions and how global trade is conducted. Only then can IIFT students make a meaningful contribution towards enhancing India’s share in global markets,’ she remarked.
Nirmala Sitharaman complemented Andhra Pradesh for being number 1 in exports of aqua and marine products. ‘This is a very creditable achievement, as standards of international importers are very stringent. Traceability is a major issue in export of aqua and marine products,’ she observed.
She said as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has suggested, one district-one product concept should be implemented for quality exports. Each district has some kind of organic capacity for exporting a particular product. At the same time, the idea of ‘vocal for local’ should also be taken seriously.
The finance minister observed: ‘India has many local products in handicrafts that capture international imagination. For that, taxes should be removed on export products and logistic costs reduced greatly. States can play a pivotal role in cutting logistics costs,’ she underlined.
Sitharaman said entrepreneurs of Andhra Pradesh have recognised the importance of marine products and their export to foreign nations. ‘With a wide coastline extending about 700 km and government providing incentives to entrepreneurs, AP is in the forefront of expanding its foreign trade while maintaining international standards,’ she underlined.
State finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy, fisheries minister S. Appala Raju, BC welfare minister Ch. S. Venugopalakrishna, Kakinada MP Vanga Gita, and Rajamahendravaram MP M. Bharat were among those present.
At another meeting in Visakhapatnam to commemorate the birth centenary celebrations of TD founder N.T. Rama Rao held on Friday evening, Nirmala Sitharaman recalled that NTR had an in-depth understanding of good governance. Accordingly, he had launched several welfare schemes in his very first term.
Subsequent governments continued these welfare programmes. ‘But only 15 percent of them are reaching the targeted group,’ she regretted.
She declared that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the first in country to use direct transfer technology, which has resulted in beneficiaries getting full benefits of a scheme without any leakage.
The union finance minister said similarly, Modi had also done away with license and inspector raj. ‘With a single stroke of pen, the Prime Minister has scrapped 1,500 acts, creating the much-needed environment that is free from corruption. Many more acts will go soon,’ she disclosed.
BJP national leader Daggubati Purendeswari and Lok Satta founder Jayparakesh Narayan spoke on the occasion.
