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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  India amends DFTP scheme to increase trade with Africa
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India amends DFTP scheme to increase trade with Africa

India has amended its Duty Free Tariff Preference scheme to cover around 98% of the tariff lines

Commerce secretary Rajeev Kher said the government is also considering expanding and augmenting the Lines of Credit extended to Africa. Photo: PIBPremium
Commerce secretary Rajeev Kher said the government is also considering expanding and augmenting the Lines of Credit extended to Africa. Photo: PIB

New Delhi: India has amended its duty-free market access scheme for African nations to help boost trade between the two regions, industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said on Thursday.

“In order to expand trade with Africa, India had recently amended its Duty Free Tariff Preference (DFTP) scheme to cover around 98% of the tariff lines," CII said, quoting commerce secretary Rajeev Kher.

Under the scheme, import of most products from least developed nations to India attract lower duties. The government is in the process of disseminating this information to all the nations. The government is also considering expanding and augmenting the Lines of Credit extended to Africa, Kher said.

Kher was addressing the representatives of Regional Economic Communities in Africa late evening on Wednesday. Highlighting growth in India-Africa trade relationship, Kher said it has increased 10-fold over the past 10 years. Further, he also sought cooperation of African countries at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the issue of food security.

Meanwhile in a separate statement, Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) said that India and Africa need to resolve issues like connectivity and infrastructural bottlenecks to reach the mutual trade target of $100 billion by the end of 2015 from the present level of about $70 billion.

These issues were highlighted at a meeting between the EEPC members, senior officials of the commerce ministry and diplomats from the African countries on Thursday.

Engineering exports to Africa stood at about $10-12 billion, which is about one-third of India’s total exports to the continent. “We are keen on further engaging not only with top destinations like South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt etc but also several other countries in the region, rich in natural resources," EEPC India chairman Anupam Shah said.

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Published: 21 Aug 2014, 06:20 PM IST
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