Political leaders, industrialists and businessmen are increasingly looking to tap the resource-rich countries of the world's second largest continent even as two-way trade between India and Africa is poised to reach $70 billion by 2015 from $46 billion at present.
Analysts believe engineering exports would soon dominate the country's foreign trade, thanks to a conscious policy shift towards building strength and capitalising on critical industries such as engineering and chemicals.
While Pakistan has been showing considerable interest in having a bilateral trade deal with India that would help them access the country's booming markets, India has stated this can only become a possibility only when it recognises India as their non-discriminatory trading partner, commerce secretary Rahul Khullar told in an interview.
The India-Asean free trade agreement (FTA) in merchandise goods has failed to realise its full potential, even as the deal was implemented in January 2010 to facilitate greater trade in the region. As a result, reduction of duties on several products might get delayed.
The US has emphasised on the need for an "ambitious and balanced outcome", even as the World Trade Organization (WTO) is gearing up to circulate another set of texts to push all its 153 members to wrap up the Doha Round of global trade talks by the end of this year.
FDI is essentially long-term investments that come with added benefits such as better technology, management and marketing assistance, says the study.
The revised version of the FDI policy, which will be released on March 31, is expected to do away with Press Note 1, 2005, to bring in the above-mentioned change.
Under the services sector, India had been demanding greater opening, so that more professionals like doctors, nurses, chefs, accountants get greater job opportunities.
Ministry will give relief to exporters through a mechanism that will enable a timely refund of credit balance and time-bound refund of additional duty of customs.
India and the US are set to address some of the prickly issues that have acted as major irritants in the commercial relations between both countries recently, to ensure greater flow of trade and investment.
We welcome all companies from India to come and invest and do business there. We have almost no restrictions in any sector at all. However, we expect similar reciprocity in India for our apples, pistachios, helicopters, and disaster relief materials, besides other products. We do not restrict such items from entering the US markets.
The finance ministry said it would wait for RBI guidelines, a development which will provide much relief to ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank. Both are already known as Foreign Owned Indians Controlled entities, after foreign investment in them rose much above 50 per cent, following new norms of calculations by the commerce ministry.
The government is likely to extend interest subvention for some export-oriented sectors for another year to sustain the current growth in exports. This will be announced during the coming Union Budget for 2011-2012.
The government is set to announce some significant measures to reduce the high transaction costs faced by the country's exporters in their day-to-day operations. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will be unveiling the measures on February 8.
The government is unlikely to extend any more incentives to exporters this financial year, with the export growth rate at an impressive 36.3 per cent in December, even as they complain of a high interest rate eating away competitiveness.
Despite all official assurances, the path towards a free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the European Union (EU) this year remains ambiguous, as both sides are unwilling to relax their stand on the biggest stumbling block - the issue of "data exclusivity".
The long-awaited move to bring urea under the Nutrient-Based Subsidy (NBS) scheme is likely to be announced in the coming Union Budget, to be unveiled on February 28, even as the government would decontrol its prices gradually.
The government is likely to announce significant policy measures relating to allowance of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the multi-brand retail segment, even as the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (Dipp) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is giving final touches to the draft report prepared by an inter-ministerial committee.
The government's aim is to ensure it gets to its Rs 40,000-crore (Rs 400-billion) target from disinvestment proceeds before the end of 2010-11.
Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma has said India will not "rush to" the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the "regressive" steps taken by the US recently, which include an increase in the visa fee and a special levy on foreign manufacturers.
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