India 2018

Commerce 99
of goods, facilitate refund of VAT/ octroi/state level cess, and address other
issues relating to various clearances, etc. and build capacity of new exporters,
in order to promote exports. So far,17 states have prepared their exports strategy.
Government e- Market (GeM)
DGSD created a dedicated e-market for different goods and services procured/
sold by government/PSUs, a technology driven platform to facilitate
procurement of goods and services by various ministries and agencies of the
government. The portal was launched in 2016. GeM -a scalable system and being
completely online, transparent, and system driven, makes procurement of goods
and services, easy, efficient and fast. It covers entire procurement process chain,
right from vendor registration, item selection by buyer, supply order generation,
and receipt of goods/services by the consignees (s), to online payment to vendor.
WTO and India
India is one of the founding members of the World Trade Organization and is
fully committed to multilateralism. Currently, negotiations are ongoing in the
WTO on Doha Development Agenda, adopted in 2001 which aims to address
the concerns of developing countries. The agenda was so designed as to ensure
integration of these countries into the global trading system.
Services
Importance of Services
Services are the growing frontier of global trade. In terms of contribution towards
GDP, FDI, exports and employment generation, services are becoming a
dominant driver of economic growth, both in developed and developing
countries.
Other Issues
Visa Reforms
With a view to stimulating economic growth, increasing earnings from the export
of services like tourism, medical value travel, travel on account of business
thereby making India an attractive destination for foreign direct and portfolio
investment, various measures for liberalization, simplification and
rationalization of the visa regime in India have been introduced. Some important
changes introduced are: liberalization of the e-Visa scheme, tourist, business,
medical and employment visas.; new categories of visas such as Intern Visa
and film visa have been introduced; this will give a fillip to tourism, medical
value travel and media and entertainment industry
Service Exports from India Scheme (SEIS)
The government introduced the SEIS from 2015 under the foreign trade policy
(FTP), 2015-20. It replaces the earlier scheme 'Served From India Scheme' under
the FTP, 2009-15. Under SEIS, the service providers of notified services are
incentivized in the form of duty credit scrips at the rate of 3 or 5 per cent on