Govt mulls AYUSH export promotion council to boost global trade

The AYUSH ministry is currently holding stakeholder consultations to explore setting up of an AYUSH Export Promotion Council (EPC) and procedural steps involving in setting up the council are being taken up, Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal informed the Parliament.

In a reply to Ranjeetsinha Hindurao Naik-Nimbalkar (BJP MP from Pune) and Devji Mansingram Patel (BJP MP from Jalore, Rajasthan), Goyal said the Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has been tasked to coordinate with the Department of Commerce and the Indian Industry members who are interested in forming the corpus for the export promotion council.

The Union minister said the Ministry of AYUSH has also formed a task force on expanding the trade classification, quality control and standardization of Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) and Herbal Products. The recommendations of the task force are currently under examination of the government.

Goyal said as most of the products of Ayurveda, Homoeopathic, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa, Unani systems, Herbal Products and Medicinal Plant products are not identified under specific HS Codes (International Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System) hence the government is taking various steps for standardization of HS Code for AYUSH to achieve price and quality competitiveness to boost the exports.

The Harmonized System (HS Codes) is an international nomenclature for the classification of products. It allows participating countries to classify traded goods on a common basis for customs purposes.

In December last year, the Commerce and AYUSH ministries decided to work together to boost the export of AYUSH products. The decision was taken a joint review of AYUSH trade by Piyush Goyal and Minister of AYUSH Shripad Naik.

The spurt in exports of AYUSH products in recent months is a direct reflection of its growing popularity in many countries. And hence the trade and commerce in the AYUSH sector needed to upscale quickly in order to meet the growing demands from India and abroad.