Arvind Panagariya Highlighted Role of FTAs in Trade Liberalisation

Arvind Panagariya, a former vice chairman of Niti Aayog, spoke on Thursday about India's future strategy for negotiating Free Trade Agreements and their significance to the world economy. He was addressing the central government secretaries at a programme on "Openness to Trade: Economic and Policy Considerations."

The Department of Commerce (DoC), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, organised the programme. According to a ministry release, it is a part of the prime minister's initiative to raise senior government officials' awareness of the value of trade and the contribution that exports make to accelerating growth.

Panagariya, who is currently a professor of economics at Columbia University, stressed the significance of export-led growth, the necessity of reviewing the import substitution strategy, the factors affecting export competitiveness, and the role of FTAs in trade liberalisation during the opening session, it was added.
He also discussed how India should proceed when negotiating FTAs and their significance to the world economy, according to the press release.

In a statement, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba emphasised the importance of FTAs and government initiatives like PLIs (Performance Linked Incentive) and ODOP (One District One Product) in helping India reach its goal of having a $5 trillion economy as well as the necessity for improved inter-ministerial cooperation and coordination.

He claimed that Covid had made India more aware of the dangers of relying solely on one nation and one source. Secretaries from a number of central government ministries and departments attended the first session.