The union ministry for commerce and industry has announced the annual supplement 2005 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-'09 here on April 8, 2005. The announcement has brought in a number of rationalizations into the Advance Licensing Scheme. It also calls for faster functioning of the office of the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) with setting up of Inter State Trade Council.

The major changes made in the advance licensing system include the introduction of different categories of Advance licences i.e. advance licence for physical export, advance licence for intermediate supplies and advance licence for deemed exports have been merged into a single category for procedural facilitation and easier monitoring. The FTP has extended the scope of Advance Licence for Annual Requirement to all categories of exporters having past export performance. Earlier, the option was limited to Status Holders only. Also, the earlier limit has been enhanced from 200 per cent of FOB value of exports to 300 per cent. Clubbing of advance licences for export regularization purpose has been allowed even for licences pertaining to 1992-97 period. Simplification of the procedures for the transfer of Duty Free material imported under Advance Licence from one unit of a company to another unit is another significant change.

The DGFT shall strive to move towards an automated electronic environment for filing, retrieval and authentication of documents. To enable the users to make commercial decisions in a more professional manner, trade data shall be made available with minimum time lag in a query-based structured format.

All DGFT offices shall continue to provide facilitation to exporters in regard to developments in international trade, for example, WTO agreements, Rules of Origin, SPS requirements and Anti Dumping issues to help exporters strategise their business decisions in an internationally dynamic environment.

The government has proposed the setting up of an Inter State Trade Council as coherence and consistency among trade and other economic policies of both the Union and the State Governments is vital in order to achieve the Foreign Trade Policy objective. State Governments are increasingly required to partner with the Union Government. Some States have formulated export policies. But a lot needs to be done to coordinate these efforts - Hence the plans for the new council.