NITI Aayog’s workshop on inclusive trade for growth and prosperity

NITI Aayog organized a thematic workshop on “Inclusive Trade for Growth and Prosperity”. The workshop highlighted the need to broaden domestic access, ownership and implementation of the outcomes of the New Delhi Leaders Declaration (NDLD) in the areas of inclusive trade and resilient supply chains for growth and prosperity.

• This thematic workshop was organized as a follow-up to the New Delhi Leaders Declaration (NDLD) under India's G20 Chairmanship of the Summit.
• The emphasis was on adopting strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive trade for development and prosperity of all.

Background of the event:

• NITI Aayog is organizing a series of thematic workshops on the key agendas of the New Delhi Leaders' Declaration (NDLD).
• The objective of these workshops is to formulate actionable strategies and plans to be implemented to accelerate the development and prosperity of the country.
• Other thematic workshops focused on SGD, Roadmap for Tourism, Digital Public Infrastructure, India and African Union Cooperation, Data for Development, Women Leadership Development etc.

Need for non-discriminatory and inclusive trading system:

• NITI Aayog CEO B.V.R. Subramaniam in his keynote address highlighted the need for a non-discriminatory and inclusive trading system that facilitates trade as an engine of growth and prosperity.
• Furthermore, he also stressed the need for India to integrate with global value chains (GVCs) and rapidly adapt to emerging trade systems.
• Dr. Arvind Virmani, Honorable Member, NITI Aayog, while addressing the first session titled 'Mapping Global Value Chain', highlighted several issues.
• These mainly highlighted the need to simplify labor-intensive supply chains, institutional factors for policy making and taxation systems, and in particular to strengthen integrated payment, refund and export credit systems for MSMEs.
• Dr. Virmani also underlined the need to address various anti-dumping issues and promote FTAs with potential partners.

Promoting inclusive trade for growth:

• The second session on 'Promoting Inclusive Trade for Development' was chaired by Professor Ramesh Chand, Honorable Member, NITI Aayog. The main points highlighted in this session mainly included: 
  • Strengthening capacity and infrastructure development of LDCs;
  • Reducing non-tariff barriers;
  • Mobilizing resources to increase support for business for MSMEs, especially in developing and underdeveloped countries;
  • Digital inclusion in three areas such as infrastructure, skills and data ownership;
  • Standard Setting;
  • Technological Progress;
  • Transparency; And
  • Including the integration of climate principles into business systems.

Conclusion of the Workshop:

• The concluding session of this workshop 'Solving the Challenges of Inclusive Trade' was chaired by Dr. Harsh Vardhan Singh, former DDG of WTO. During this, many topics were raised, mainly: 
  • He sought to increase India's traditional exports,
  • Increasing female labor force participation in business;
  • State/district level integration in supply chain and trade (promotion of districts as export hubs);
  • Facilitate integration of MSMEs into GVCs;
  • logistics and financial support;
  • Access to information for MSMEs;
  • climate resilient agriculture by promoting nutritious grains and accelerating exports of services;
  • Digitization of business related documents; And
  • Attention was drawn to strengthening them by focusing on focused skill development including reskilling and upskilling.

NITI Aayog:

• Established: January 1, 2015
• Structure of NITI Aayog:
• Chairman: Prime Minister
• Vice Chairman: Appointed by the Prime Minister
• Governing Council of NITI Aayog: Chief Ministers of all States and Lieutenant Governors of Union Territories.
• Regional Council: The Prime Minister or his nominee chairs a meeting of Chief Ministers and Lieutenant Governors to address specific regional issues.
• Ad-hoc Membership: 2 ex-officio members by rotation from leading research institutions.
• Chief Executive Officer (CEO): Secretary to the Government of India who is appointed by the Prime Minister for a fixed term. At present CEO of NITI Aayog is B.V.R. Subramaniam.
• Special Invitees: Experts from various fields nominated by the Prime Minister.
• Ex-officio Membership: Maximum four members of the Union Council of Ministers nominated by the Prime Minister.