Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the meeting of 70-member Board of Trade tomorrow to discuss ways to boost exports, which are in negative zone since December 2014.
It is the first meeting of the reconstituted Board of Trade (BoT), a top advisory body on trade. It was reconstituted as per the provisions of the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) for 2015-20.
The objective of the BoT is to have continuous discussion and consultation with trade and industry. The BoT would advise the government on policy measures related to FTP in order to achieve the objective of boosting India's trade.
The Board's last meeting was held in August, 2013
The reconstituted BOT comprises of 19 members from industry and academia (non-official members); 31 heads of trade and industry associations (ex-officio members); and 20 top officials including 13 secretaries to government of India, Deputy Governor of RBI, Railway Board Chairman and National Highways Authority of India Chairman.
Besides, the Director General of Foreign Trade is the member secretary of the Board.
The non-official members include Apollo Tyres CMD Onkar Kanwar, Hero MotoCorp MD Pawan Munjal, ICICI Bank Ltd MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, Biocon MD Kiran Majumdar-Shaw, Dr Reddy's MD Satish Reddy, HCL Technologies Chairman Shiv Nadar, Mahindra Group MD Anand Mahindra, ITC Chairman Y C Deveshwar and Ashok Leyland MD R Seshasayee.
The terms of reference of the BoT include reviewing export performance of various sectors, identify constraints and suggest industry specific measures to optimise export earnings.
Falling for the 15th month in a row, exports dipped 5.66 per cent in February to USD 20.73 billion due to contraction in shipments of petroleum and engineering goods amid tepid global demand.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), whose representative will attend the meeting, said that they will suggest ways to boost exports.
"We will also suggest that Indian government should extend line of credit to Latin American and African countries as they are facing foreign exchange crisis due to dip in oil and commodity prices. In this way we can enhance our exports to those nations," FIEO DG Ajay Sahai said.
