NEW DELHI, Jun 30 : Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday asked the industry and exporters to boost domestic manufacturing, diversify supply chains and cut import dependency.

  Addressing a meeting with government officials and representatives of export promotion councils and industry associations here, he stated that the government is committed to create a facilitative trade environment through ease of doing business, and create more market opportunities for exporters.

“He emphasized that the industry should ramp up their manufacturing capabilities, diversify supply chains, reduce import dependency to realise the goal of becoming Atmanirbhar Bharat,” the commerce ministry said.

Free trade agreements (FTAs) being negotiated, signed and implemented also figured prominently in the deliberations.

“Discussions centred around the various FTA concluded in the past, status and challenges in utilisation of such FTAs, opportunities created by the recently concluded FTAs and industry views and expectations for the proposed and ongoing  negotiations,” it said.

Further, the ministry informed the participants about the proposed reforms planned for special economic zones (SEZs).

There are plans to simplify the procedures, increase economies of scales, utilise the idle capacities at SEZs, it added.

According to exporters, who attended the meeting, Goyal asked them to share problems in increasing utilisation of these trade agreements.

On the issue of China restrictions on export of rare earth magnets, one of the exporters said that the minister suggested the industry to look for alternate sources.

The automobile and the medical devices industry has sought government support in expediting approvals from the Chinese government for importing rare earth magnets used in various applications.

An exporter said that the domestic industry should look at markets such as Russia and South Africa for that.

The country’s outbound shipments have contracted by 2.17 per cent in May.

After registering a positive growth for two months, India’s exports slipped into negative territory again, contracting 2.17 per cent year-on-year to USD 38.73 billion in May due to a fall in petroleum goods’ shipments, while trade deficit narrowed to USD 21.88 billion during the month. (PTI)