Trade policy date likely on August 6

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath will unveil the first National Foreign Trade Policy in the first week of August. The two tentative dates are August 6 and August 12.

Officials told Business Standard that the announcement of the policy has been postponed from July to August as the minister was slated to attend crucial meetings of the non-group (NG) of countries and the G-90 on World Trade Organisation (WTO) issues starting this week.

Efforts are underway to work out the contours of a draft framework for negotiations on agriculture, services and industrial tariffs at the WTO by the month-end.

Kamal Nath is also slated to accompany Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to a meeting of the BIMST-EC (Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand Economic Cooperation) in the last week of July.

Following presentations by various export promotion councils and associations, the minister has from Monday begun a series of discussions with the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) to work out the details of the policy.

The National Foreign Trade Policy is expected to focus on six employment generating sectors "" agriculture, textiles, handicrafts, handloom, leather and gems and jewellery. In addition, the special economic zone model is proposed to be extended to services like tourism.

Officials said the minister had identified employment generation as the key thrust area of his first policy and plans were now being drawn up and consultations were underway.

The officials said that six merchandise sectors had been identified and the commerce department was toying with the idea of sector-specific zones for the seven product categories.

Agricultural export zones for farm products are already operational and the government may provide additional sops to generate more employment through increased exports.

The policy is expected to include programmes like Focus Latin America and Focus CIS.