More lateral entry from private sector, new trade promotion body planned for Commerce Department: Piyush Goyal

Systemic democratisation of trade and the creation of 100 Indian brands as global champions have also been set as objectives by BCG. “The PM desires to see large Indian multinationals which can play an increasingly important role in not only giving a boost to the Indian economy by creating a large number of jobs but also increase our standing in the world by creating high-value products,” Goyal said.

Also on the cards is the setting up of economic zones or industrial hubs across the country to strengthen the manufacturing and service base. The government recently put into motion its efforts to revamp special economic zones into Development of Enterprise and Service Hubs (DESH).

“We will be restructuring the entire Commerce Department as will be decided in the course of the further interministerial consultations and after inputs from the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) and other relevant agencies,” Goyal said.

New trade policy architecture

The overall plan also pushes for a new trade promotion body that will drive the formulation and execution of strategies. This will be augmented by Indian missions abroad which will play an increasing role in gathering market intelligence and handhold exporters. Digitisation of trade administration and overhauling of the data analysis ecosystem to make it more outcome-oriented are also planned, officials said.

The government now plans to modify the Indian trade service to attract talent from the private sector to enable ‘multi-functional teams’ to be created.

“The ITS will be the in-house, long-term expertise that will reside in the department, and as other officers from the central staffing scheme keep coming and going, the ITS will carry on. So rather than being clearers of incentives, they will be trade promoters,” commerce secretary BVR Subrahmanyam said.

“There will be one wing largely focused on negotiations, getting into agreements, and developing internal strengths. Second, we are improving data functions. We will set up a huge trade intelligence analytics function so that people find it in a readily usable form. Third, there will be a huge trade promotion function that will subsume many of the functions done by DGFT (Directorate General of Foreign Trade) and the Commerce Department in just one location,” he explained.

The significant restructuring of the department will result in several positions undergoing a major change. “The finance ministry does not give permission for new positions until you surrender a similar number of positions. Also, in any department across the government today, there are more people at the bottom and fewer people at the top. We have to reduce the number of people at the bottom,” Goyal said.

The minister added that there will not be an overall increase in the workforce. Instead, there will be a recasting of jobs that will be accompanied by reskilling, ”Even a section officer will now have to engage in trade intelligence apart from his administrative role,” Goyal said.