India and Singapore are making progress in signing mutual recognition agreement for para- medical courses that will make it easier for domestically trained nurses to get work in the South East Asian country.
"Our nurses are highly sought after...We have made some progress in Singapore and soon we should have some kind of movement of nurses," Additional Secretary in the Commerce Ministry J S Deepak today said here.
While India and Singapore have reduced customs duty on goods since the implementation of the free trade agreement in 2005, they are yet to sign the mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) that honour each other's educational and professional qualifications.
Once the agreement is signed, degree/certificates given by Indian institutes would be valid in Singapore.
India is yet to sign MRAs with Japan and South Korea with which the country has implemented comprehensive free trade pacts.
Deepak said that these processes takes time.
"It is a challenge, it require reforms before it can happen," he said, adding "(services) trade is a slow process".
Joint Secretary in the ministry Sudhanshu Pandey said that lots of work is going in respective ministries "where we are asking them to map gaps that exists between the curriculum of 'X' country and 'Y' countries so that we launch specific modules".
Pandey said that the ministry is suggesting them to have a language course built in which is optional so that if somebody is trying to look at some market, course is also undertaken side by side.
Deepak told reporters that the ministry in association with CII is organising a two-day services conclave from tomorrow with an aim to explore ways to further enhance India's competitiveness and exports in the sector.
The focus of the conclave will be to explore newer paradigms in services exports, which is presently dominated by the exports of IT and ITeS).
It will also attempt to identify the challenge areas in services exports and strategies a roadmap for its sustained and accelerated growth in short, medium and long term besides laying down modalities for closing the gap between merchandise and services exports to create more employment and business opportunities in the sector.
The ministry will also organise a global services fair here which is expected to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said. It is scheduled on April 23 to 25.
The two-day conclave assumes significance as services sector contributes about 57 per cent in India's economy. The country's annual services exports stood at USD 151 billion in 2013-14 as against USD 312 billion merchandise shipments.
