The Commerce Ministry will thoroughly review the Free Trade Agreements with various blocks of countries, the Special Economic Zone and the Companies Act, according to Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Commerce (Independent Charge).

“We intend to revive the economy, the manufacturing sector, exports, agriculture, labour and SMEs. All this make part of an economy. If we want to revive the economy, each of the problems in various sectors need to be addressed,” she told newspersons.

She was in Chennai to meet the representatives from various industry associations to understand their demands from the Central Government.

“I have instructed my ministry to do a complete analysis of each of the FTAs. There are such agreements with several blocks of countries. There are mixed reactions about the FTAs. Not every FTA is seen completely beneficial to India. The ministry will look at it critically and apprise itself of the benefits that the FTAs have given, because in some cases it seems we have leveraged the FTAs lesser than the other side,” she said.

The ministry will soon come with a report on how to leverage the existing FTAs, learn lessons from it so that the newer FTAS will be better made to give us better opportunities.

Special economic zones

Sitharaman said the ministry will also look at the Special Economic Zones and understand the various issues concerning the sector. There is a complete review happening at the secretary-level on SEZ today with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking a keen interest on this, she said.

Companies Act

On the Companies Act, the minister said it has been one of the things that many people have said that there is lot of trouble. It has posed a lot of difficulties for many groups, including the industry.

She said a major consultation meeting will be held with various stakeholders in Delhi next Saturday as to why the Companies Act has problems and how best these problems can be sorted out.

Related Topics