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Finance Minister released the National Trade Facilitation Action Plan and the WTO-Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) coming into force on February 22, 2017.
National Trade Facilitation Action Plan
Aim : To transform cross border clearance ecosystem through efficient, transparent, risk based, coordinated, digital, seamless and technology driven procedures which are supported by state-of-the-art sea ports, airports and land borders.
- The action plan lists out specific activities which would be carried out by all regulatory agencies like Customs, FSSAI, Drug Controller.
- It also covers many activities in the areas of infrastructure augmentation, particularly the road and rail infrastructure leading to ports and the infrastructure within ports, airports, ICDs, land customs stations that cuts across all stakeholders for which various ministries like shipping, civil aviation, railways, road transport and highways, home affairs, finance and commerce have been assigned specified targets.
- The statement said all actions covered under the plan have been categorised by prioritising the activities into short, mid and long term.
- National plan would be monitored by the steering committee (the operational arm of the National Committee on Trade Facilitation) chaired by the revenue secretary and the commerce secretary.
The NCTF comprises stakeholders from the government and the private sector, including trade community. The NCTF has adopted a 76-point National Trade Facilitation Action Plan (NTFAP) which is a reflection of the government’s commitment to implement the TFA.
Source : The Hindu
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