The quixotic quinquennial Foreign Trade Policy making
The new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) of India will be released anytime soon. India's FTP is quinquennial in nature. It undergoes major revision every fifth year. The last one was the FTP 2009-14. The new one will be for the period 2014-19. Every year, a small supplement to the FTP is released after the union budget, by the commerce ministry, in order to accommodate incremental need for adjustments. I hear that this time the FTP will contain two parts. The first part will contain more of a policy intent and direction and would detail India's approach towards various international trade related issues including FTAs, SEZs, service sector, branding and so on. The second part would contain the policy instruments, such as incentive schemes. All these years, the second part alone was called foreign trade policy. There was no first part detailing the direction and approach. That's what I hear. And if so, it's welcome news. However, what's also interesting is that...