'India needs to prepare for challenges mega trade deals pose'

India needs to focus on improving product standards, manufacturing and services delivery to remain competitive in the global markets as mega regional trade deals TPP and TTIP would pose challenges to industries in the country.
"Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) represent half of the trade in the world. So, they undoubtedly extremely important and critical for emerging countries like India," Commerce Secretary Rajeev Kher said here at a CII function.
He said these views are his personal and not the "perception" of the commerce secretary.
TPP and TTIP would pose a big challenge to the Indian industry as the country's biggest trading partners the US and Europe are members of these proposed mega free trade pacts.

Kher said India's exports is significant to the US and EU and "clearly if the new rules are being laid out there then whether you like it or not you have to suffer and that preferential erosion is clearly discernible and it will happen significantly".
Sectors which may get impacted adversely include textiles, pharmaceuticals, IT and intellectual property related matters.

He said TPP would be a challenge to India because it offers an opportunity to graduate into a higher paradigm of production, services delivery, procedures and processes.
Kher said this is the right time to do the preparatory work in order to deal with the challenges which would emerge once these pacts are implemented.

"The most important thing for India is to maintain or rather to improve its growth in exports, to revive manufacturing, and revive competitiveness in services delivery," he added.
He also said that there is an urgent need of reforms in areas such as infrastructure, labour and taxation.
"There is a whole lot of low hanging fruits - simplification, digitisation, cutting down procedures, improving logistics. All of these are possible. It is not given more attention. Give more attention and start working on these issues," he said.
Further he said that domestic industry should explore markets such as Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, the CIS and Asean as huge opportunities are present there.

"There is a world outside TPP and we need to strengthen our relationship with that part of the world and find ways how we can become competitive so that your presence increase globally," he said.
Speaking at the occasion, Secretary (ER) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta said that these mega trading blocs will have an impact on the entire world.
"We have to focus on getting the best out of the new trade winds that are blowing across the globe and play a more proactive role in the new economic architect that is undoubtedly emerging through these trading arrangements," she said.