Benefits of Free Trade Agreements

The Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed by India provide tariff concessions thereby giving opportunities for exports of products including those related to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Some of the SME products on which tariff concessions have been provided by trading partners such as Japan, South Korea and some ASEAN countries fall into the category of readymade garments, leather goods, processed foods and engineering products like auto components.  The specific export promotion schemes for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) include those for participation in international exhibitions and fairs, training programme on packaging for exports, Market Development Assistance (MDA) Scheme for MSME exporters and National Award for quality products.  Some of the other measures taken by the Government which would promote trade and benefit exports from SMEs are specific schemes under the new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2015-20 such as Interest Equalization Scheme on pre and post shipment rupee export credit, Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), Services Exports from India Scheme (SEIS), double weightage for export entitlement to SMEs for grant of one star export house, electronic filing and issuance for specified FTP Schemes, online platform for preferential certificates of origin, etc. While a logistics division has been created in the Department of Commerce to coordinate integrated development of the logistics sector with a view to promoting trade, some of the new schemes and policies that have been launched to facilitate trade are Agriculture Export Policy, Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES) and Transport and Marketing Assistance (TMA).

This information was given by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.