Budget 2025 to launch Export Promotion Mission, Bharat Trade Net, and revamp Bilateral Investment Treaty
Chennai: While the global uncertainties are looming large over global trade, the Budget proposes to set an Export Promotion Mission, a unified platform for documentation purposes and make bilateral investment treaties investor-friendly.
“We will set up an Export Promotion Mission, with sectoral and ministerial targets, driven jointly by the Ministries of Commerce, MSME, and Finance. It will facilitate easy access to export credit, cross-border factoring support, and support to MSMEs to tackle non-tariff measures in overseas markets,” the Budget said.
“A key question is whether the new provisions will cover only pre-shipment and post-shipment credit, which are short-term working capital loans, or will it extend credit for business expansion and machinery purchases,” said Ajay Srivastava, founder, GTRI.
A major concern is that the Interest Equalization Scheme, which reduces borrowing costs for exporters, has only been extended for a few months.
The Budget said that a digital public infrastructure, ‘Bharat Trade Net’ (BTN) for international trade will be set-up as a unified platform for trade documentation and financing solutions.
For Bharat Trade Net to work effectively, it must be a National Trade Network (NTN) that centralizes all export-import compliance processes in one system, eliminating the need for businesses to deal separately with customs, DGFT, shipping companies, ports, and banks. This will ensure faster approvals within 2-5 hours.
Without elaborating, the Budget said that support will be provided to develop domestic manufacturing capacities for our economy’s integration with global supply chains. Integration into GVC will require seamless flow of export and import goods across customs and ports and delays can jeopardize the entire production chain, leading to firms and even countries being excluded from the network.
“The Finance Minister’s announcement that India will revamp its 2015 Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) to make it more investor-friendly is a necessary move. India’s rigid approach to investment treaties over the past decade has cost it valuable foreign investments and created unnecessary roadblocks in international negotiations,” said Srivastava.