Sharma sees India's share in global trade doubling in 5 years

The government is looking at doubling the country's share in global merchandise trade within five years and it intends to use trade expansion as an effective instrument of economic growth and employment generation, commerce minister Anand Sharma said while announcing India's five-year Foreign Trade Policy for 2009-14.

Sharma said the policy measures will be for a two-year period, and thereafter the government will review them for making mid course corrections.

"The immediate objective of this policy is to arrest and reverse the declining trend of exports and to provide additional support, especially to those sectors which have been hit badly by the recession in the developed world," he said.

"We would like to achieve an annual export growth of 15 per cent over 2010-11 with an annual export target of $200 billion by March 2011. In the remaining three years of this Foreign Trade Policy, the country should be able to come back on the high export growth path of around 25 per cent per annum. By 2014, we expect to double India's exports of goods and services. The long term policy objective for the government is to double India's share in global trade by 2020," he said.

In order to meet these objectives, the government would provide a policy environment through a mix of measures, including fiscal incentives, institutional changes, procedural rationalisation, and efforts for enhanced market access across the world and diversification of export markets.

The policy seeks to improve export related infrastructure, lower transaction costs and provide full refund of all indirect taxes and levies to achieve trade targets.