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agreements (FTAs) with several partners – both bilateral and regional – over the past many years
with a view to promote India’s exports. A further push in this direction would help provide the
institutional arrangements to, inter alia, diversify both products and destinations.
Progress on Trade Agreements

3.19 During last few years, India has initiated its trade agreement negotiations and reviewed
existing agreements with many countries. This inter alia includes negotiations for (i)
Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) between India and Australia
(ii) FTA with European Union (EU) (iii) Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement
(CEPA) with Canada and (iv) CEPA with UAE. In addition, India is reviewing its existing trade
agreements such as the CECA with Singapore and ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement
(AITIGA) with ASEAN, among others. Negotiations are complete for agreement with UAE and
at advance stage with Australia.

3.20 Further, India launched the FTA negotiations with the UK on 13 January, 2022, which is
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expected to facilitate the target of doubling bilateral trade by 2030, set by the Prime Ministers
of both the nations in May 2021. Under India-US Trade Policy Forum (Ministerial), discussions
were held with the US delegation on 6 October 2021 regarding Social Security Agreement,
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Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) in nursing services and accountancy services, and
mobility issues concerning Indian professionals.

Major Schemes & Initiatives to boost exports
3.21 The impressive performance of India’s exports may be attributed to various schemes
and initiatives taken by the Government to boost exports and to reduce the adverse impact of
COVID-19. Some of these schemes are as under:

i. Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP): In order to boost
Indian exports, a WTO compliant RoDTEP scheme is brought into effect from 01.01.2021.
Based on the globally accepted principle that taxes and duties should not be exported,
this scheme is an improvement over Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS).
This new scheme reimburses currently un-refunded Central, State, and Local taxes and
duties incurred in the process of manufacture and distribution of exported products and
thereby provides a level playing field to domestic industry abroad. Major components of
taxes covered are electricity duty, value-added tax (VAT) on fuels used in transportation/
distribution, mandi tax, stamp duty, etc.

ii. Developing District as Export Hub: Under this initiative, the focus is to make
districts active stakeholders in the promotion of exports of goods/services produced/
manufactured in the district. District Export Promotion Committees (DEPCs) have
been set up in each district. Products with export potential (including agricultural,
geographical indication (GI) & toy clusters) have been identified in all 739 districts
across the country. This scheme would help in diversifying the portfolio of export
commodities.

iii. Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme: An outlay of `1.97 lakh crore (US$ 26
billion) was announced in Union Budget 2021-22 for Production-Linked Incentive (PLI)