Exporters must exploit agreements to access untapped markets

Chennai, Mar 18 (UNI) Negotiations for inking regional agreements and forming trade blocks are under different stages with countries slowly opening up their economy, a top Export Inspection Council of India (EIC) official said today.

EIC Chennai Joint Director Rajiv Raizada told reporters on the sidelines of an awareness programme on 'certificates of origin' here that efforts were being made to create awareness among exporters to take advantage of the WTO non-tariff and other trade agreements.

India had three different agreements with Sri Lanka, including the SAARC Preferential Trade Agreement (SAFTA) and Indo-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (ISFTA). But, exporters, unaware of concessions, were not tapping trade opportunities in markets where they were available.

EIC was striving to aid exporters by showing them untapped markets like Latin America or ASEAN, where scope for trading several products was enormous.

Mr Raizada said due to regional agreements and bilateral pacts, India could compete with multinationals as products were accepted at lower rates in other markets. On China benefiting more from the agreement with India, he said sometime Indian industry needed a jolt.

Earlier, SICCI past President C N Gangadharan, in his speech, said China would in due course become the number one trading parter of India. In this scenario, trading blocks and trade agreements like SAARC and SAFTA, apart from specific pacts with nations like Sri Lanka, Singapore and Thailand were becoming relevant.

As many of the duty structures could not be fully understood, such a programme would show exporters ways and means to take advantage of tariff concessions and effectively compete in a globalised market.

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