New Delhi, Oct 29 (KNN) Government has stressed upon the need to continuously move towards higher standards of excellence to make trade ecosystem growth oriented and the need to do away with the multiplicity of Committees looking at trade facilitation at various levels.

The Cabinet Secretary and the Chairman of the National Committee on Trade Facilitation (NCTF), P K Sinha stressed the need to continuously move towards higher standards of excellence so that the trade eco system becomes more growth oriented.

He said this addressing the First Meeting of NCTF. Sinha emphasized that since the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) may become a binding Agreement shortly, India had to be in a state of readiness, especially for the Category ‘A’ commitments.

He summed-up the significant areas of TFA as simplification of procedures, reduction in time and cost, augmentation of infrastructure and greater use of technology.

He also directed that the Steering Committee, working under NCTF, will be co-chaired by the Revenue Secretary and the Commerce Secretary. He decided that in the initial phase, the NCTF and the Steering Committee may meet more frequently to firm- up the contours of TFA implementation plan.

It was decided that the next meeting of the NCTF will take place in December and the Steering Committee will meet twice before that to come-up with specific goals for TFA implementation.

The Revenue Secretary, Dr. Hasmukh Adhia spoke about the need to do away with the multiplicity of Committees looking at trade facilitation at various levels. He suggested that the NCTF which was now the high level national body for same could subsume other such committees and become a uniform voice on these issues.

The Commerce Secretary, Rita Teaotia in her address threw light on how India has engaged itself with the global developments on the WTO Agreement on TFA and ratified it earlier this year.

She elaborated upon the key objective of TFA as being that of reducing the cost of doing business.

While many initiatives have been spearheaded in this area by various Departments, the NCTF will now become an overarching monitoring body for same. She informed that the Department of Commerce has already got a baseline study done by the Centre for WTO Studies about the Gap Analysis status in India viz a viz the TFA. She emphasized about the need for inter-ministerial co-ordination which was seen as being crucial for the successful working of the NCTF.

The Industry Representatives complimented the Government on the initiative to establish the NCTF with both public-private partnerships. They voiced their support to Government initiatives in implementing the TFA .They also expressed the need for Government’s policy initiatives in facilitating trade to percolate down at the ground level for any meaningful change to occur.