New Delhi: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is likely to chair a meeting of the Board of Trade next month to discuss ways to boost the country's exports, an official said.
The Board is an advisory body on the foreign trade policy.
It is headed by the minister and includes participants from states, Union Territories, and senior officials from public and private sectors, and provides a platform to discuss ways on boosting manufacturing and exports. The board may meet sometime in mid-September, the official said.
Last month, the government nominated 29 non-official members from different sectors, including large and small enterprises, to the Board.
The new members include Laghu Udyog Bharati executive member Om Prakash Mittal, India Cellular and Electronics Association chairman Pankaj Mahindroo and Amul MD RS Sodhi.
Discussions in the meeting are expected to focus on the new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP 2022-27), ways to take forward domestic manufacturing and exports.
The platform provides an opportunity to have regular discussion and consultation with trade and industry and advise the government on policy measures related to FTP in order to achieve the objective of boosting India's trade.
It also provides a platform to state governments and UTs to articulate their perspective on trade policy, and also to Government of India for apprising them about international developments affecting India's trade potential and opportunities and to prepare them to deal with the evolving situation.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations vice-president Khalid Khan said the Board should discuss a circular of the RBI issued last month on measures for international trade settlement in rupees.
In that, the Reserve Bank asked banks to put in place additional arrangements for export and import transactions in the Indian rupee in view of the increasing interest of the global trading community in the domestic currency.
Some kind of standard operating procedure should be released for banks on this, Khan said.
Moreover, the Commerce and Industry Minister has called for taking "strong" legal and punitive actions against buyers and suppliers, registered on the public procurement portal GeM, who indulge in fraudulent activities.
The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal was launched on August 9, 2016, for online purchases of goods and services by all the central government ministries and departments.
While reviewing the progress of the platform, the minister also asked for addition of features to further accelerate delivery timelines.
"GeM's initiatives for tight monitoring and anomaly detection in procurement, including use of AI-ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) to detect and report potential collusion and fraud were reviewed... (the minister) suggested strong legal and punitive actions against buyers and suppliers against such activities," an official statement said on Sunday.
In addition to detecting anomalies, GeM also plans to use AI-ML to make proactive feature simplifications and product suggestions to buyers to ensure informed decision making and savings in public spendings, it added.
Significant technical upgrades have been planned by GeM to enable cutting edge use cases and improve user experience on the platform, the statement said.