Government tells missions to push exports

NEW DELHI: Amid tariff trouble, for Indian commercial missions the message from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the commerce department is clear: “Har ek country zaroori hota hai”.PMO officials have held at least five meetings with Indian missions, ministry of external affairs and trade bodies, underlining the need to step up trade engagement for goods and services to help diversify the export basket and instructed embassies to take this up on priority, persons privy to the discussions told TOI.

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While the commerce department was working on a set of identified 20 countries and six product categories in recent months as US tariffs kicked in, govt underlined the need to diversify export destinations and import sources, as well as the product baskets.“Even countries with $100-200 million exports are being prioritised as an increase in a group of such countries can add weight to the overall kitty,” an official said.Principal secretary to PM Shaktikanta Das held meetings with representatives covering over 100 countries, with commerce department and MEA brass in attendance. These meetings followed PM Narendra Modi’s discussions with a select group of exporters.“It is better to diversify. Wherever there is a small or a big opportunity, we should seek to integrate into the supply chain. Every small market today can be a big opportunity tomorrow. We should not look at it from the current size and we should leverage our presence there,” another official said.Separately, a detailed set of instructions have been issued on the strategy to be followed by each mission, with each territorial division in the commerce department and the official dealing with the region in MEA asked to review things monthly with trade bodies.Areas for promotional activities, such as e-commerce, sustainability-oriented exports, indigenous and GI-tagged goods and global branding initiatives have to be pursued by the commercial missions, an official said.There is also emphasis on boosting ‘Brand India’, with trade intelligence and market research assigned as a key responsibility of missions. This is in addition to keeping tabs on the evolving regulatory architecture, including management of non-tariff barriers, which will need to be flagged early for govt to respond at the earliest, the official added.