Special Economic Zone regime requires units to achieve positive net foreign exchange within five years while promoting exports and investment.
The Special Economic Zone regime established by the Special Economic Zone Act, 2005 seeks to generate economic activity, promote exports and investment, create employment and develop infrastructure; it imposes no fixed export or FDI targets but requires SEZ units to achieve positive Net Foreign Exchange earnings within five years of commencing production and provides concessions, rebates and exemptions as incentives to meet those objectives.

Export Performance in textiles shows mixed growth with sectoral increases and a silk decline after parliamentary disclosure.
Export performance of the Indian textile sector during 2011-12 (Apr-Dec) shows aggregate growth relative to the same period in 2010-11, with cotton, manmade and woolen segments increasing while natural silk exports declined; raw cotton exports by quantity and value also increased. The tabulated data compare April-December and full-year figures in US dollar terms and were disclosed in a written parliamentary reply.

Export incentives for handicrafts boost market access through special focus status, interest subvention and promotional support.
To boost competitiveness and market access for Indian handicrafts and handmade carpets, the Government of India implements promotional and support measures: participation in international fairs and themed displays, buyer-seller meets, brand-promotion and publicity campaigns, biannual national fairs and product-specific shows, and assistance under MDA/MAI schemes. All handicraft exports are designated as special focus product with enhanced incentives and receive a 2% interest subvention on pre-shipment and post-shipment export credit, supplemented by six sectoral schemes for design upgradation, marketing, R&D, HR development and artisan welfare.

Regulation of ammonium nitrate tightened to subject manufacture, sale and handling to statutory controls preventing misuse.
Regulation targets the control of ammonium nitrate by bringing its manufacture, import, transport, sale, possession and use within a statutory framework to prevent misuse and accidental explosions. The Government has declared it an Explosive under the Explosives Act and excluded it from fertilizer permissibility, prompting rule making to subject related activities to licensing, vetting and safety oversight.

Most Favoured Nation status: Pakistan shifted to a negative list and announced phase-out to expand preferential market access.
Pakistan shifted from a Positive List to a Negative List for imports from India via S.R.O No. 280(I)/2012 and announced a planned phase-out of that Negative List within the year, whereby items outside the SAFTA sensitive list would obtain preferential access at a capped peak tariff level under the transition to Most Favoured Nation treatment.

Import policy 'Free' for pulses and oilseeds; PSU contracting and variable landing costs affect procurement.
The import regime for pulses and oilseeds is a Free import regime; PSUs contracted imports of pulses while no oilseeds were contracted. Landing costs vary by country of export, time period, and port of import, and major source countries span multiple continents. The information was disclosed in a parliamentary written reply as administrative reporting of procurement activity.

Energy supply security sought through urgent long-term LNG commitments and upstream collaboration with Qatar partners.
India sought immediate delivery of three million tonnes of LNG for import by Petronet LNG Ltd and GAIL, with commitments envisaged to rise to fifteen million tonnes within three to four years, augmenting an existing long term supply relationship currently delivering 7.5 MMTPA. Qatar reported that RasGas and Indian agencies were negotiating the additional supplies and would prioritise expeditious processing.

Trade liberalization sequencing: call for progressive, development-appropriate services opening and support for capacity and finance.
BRICS members call for multilateral study of global value chains and better statistical methods to assess value addition; urge that services liberalization be sequenced and commensurate with development and regulatory capacity; stress that trade facilitation requires financial and technical assistance and infrastructure investment for LDCs; and highlight the need for stable financial regulation to protect trade finance, resist protectionism, pursue complementary domestic policies, and advance development-friendly multilateral trade integration including the Doha Round and strengthened UNCTAD.

Centrality of development agenda must be preserved; avoid closed-club services pacts that undermine multilateral trade rules.
The note stresses maintaining the centrality of the development agenda in trade talks, warns that plurilateral or "closed club" services agreements are discriminatory because they bypass MFN extension, and cautions that selective liberalization would upset negotiated balances. It highlights operative concerns about restrictions on the movement of natural persons-visas, entry procedures, and lack of mutual recognition of qualifications-and links these to labour mobility, the need to upgrade positions in global value chains, and a growing focus on trade facilitation and customs simplification.

Export growth increased, but rising imports widened the balance of trade deficit, based on provisional trade estimates.
India's merchandise exports grew 21% to US$303.7 billion in April 2011-March 2012 while imports rose 32.1% to US$488.6 billion, resulting in a provisional balance of trade deficit near US$184.9 billion. Major export contributors included engineering and petroleum & oil products alongside growth in Gems & Jewellery, pharmaceuticals, leather, electronics, textiles and marine products. Significant import increases were reported for petroleum, gold and silver, coal, machinery, electronics goods, vegetable oil and fertilizers, with Gems & Jewellery imports falling. The Commerce Secretary noted these figures are rough estimates subject to revision.

FDI policy liberalisation: government approval required only for FDI component in commodity exchanges, with other investor rules clarified.
Circular liberalises FDI by requiring government approval only for the FDI component in commodity exchanges while permitting FII portfolio investment without such approval; clarifies NBFC "leasing and finance" covers financial leases only; excludes second hand imported machinery from conversion to equity benefit; confirms procedures to raise aggregate FII limits with board and shareholder resolutions plus prior intimation to the central bank; and incorporates FVCI and QFI investment permissions, general transfer permissions in financial services, and updates single brand retail FDI treatment.

Trade normalization: phased removal of import restrictions and use of new border infrastructure to expand bilateral commerce.
The Ministers implemented a coordinated process to normalize and expand bilateral trade by phasing out Pakistan's Negative List and negotiating modalities and a SAFTA roadmap, while operationalising Attari-Wagah ICP infrastructure to streamline truck movement, extend working hours and permit all items not in the Negative List to be traded by land once capacity is available; they also agreed to pursue additional land customs stations, fast track cooperation on energy and banking links, liberalise business visas and form a Joint Business Council to advise on strengthening bilateral commerce.

Revalidation of export registration: government orders remaining cotton RCs revalidated to resume pending international shipments and restore market supply.
Government ordered systematic scrutiny and revalidation of outstanding Registration Certificates (RCs) for raw cotton exports, prioritising consignments pending at land custom stations and then consignments handed to customs, with remaining RCs to be revalidated within a short timeframe to clear the backlog and permit shipments to resume.

Integrated Check Post to facilitate cross-border trade, enabling institutional frameworks and customs cooperation between trading neighbours.
Opening of an Integrated Check Post at Wagah is presented as an infrastructure and regulatory measure to facilitate cross border trade, create predictable shipment channels, and reduce trade frictions through customs cooperation, visa facilitation and related trade infrastructure. Complementary institutional steps include intensifying ministerial and secretariat engagements, a Memorandum of Understanding between trade promotion bodies, and a proposed Business Council to provide an institutional framework for sustained commercial dialogue and bilateral trade facilitation.

Tea production expansion plan aims to revive Kangra Tea with research, market support and grower incentives to boost exports.
A policy package for Himachal tea targets a phased ten fold production increase and Kangra Tea revival through baseline surveys, research into organic farming, marketing under a Market Assistance Scheme, establishment of regional Tea Board infrastructure and a Tea Museum, and financial and technical supports for replanting, irrigation, processing modernization, value addition, quality assurance, certification, and international marketing.

Liberalisation of FDI in commodity exchanges: government approval now required only for the FDI component, easing entry.
The Circular liberalises FDI in commodity exchanges by requiring government approval only for the FDI component, aligns commodity-exchange rules with other securities market infrastructure, clarifies that NBFC 'leasing and finance' covers only financial leases and not operating leases, excludes second-hand machinery from conversion-to-equity concessions, and restates FII portfolio limits subject to board and shareholder resolutions with prior intimation to the central bank. It also incorporates permissions for FVCIs and QFIs, general permissions on transfers in financial services, and recent single-brand retail and pharmaceutical FDI relaxations.

Public-private partnership enables spice parks with centralized processing, storage and export oriented infrastructure to support seed spice value chains.
Establishment of ten Spice Parks creates centralized export oriented processing and storage infrastructure with common facilities for cleaning, grading, colour sorting, grinding, packing and sterilization, alongside utilities, warehouses, quality testing and ancillary services. Parks employ a public private partnership model by leasing slots to exporters for private processing lines and value addition units, while regional Spice Board offices will operate from park sites to support growers and export logistics.

Index of Eight Core Industries: 6.8% growth in Feb 2012; coal +17.8%, natural gas -7.6%.
The Index of Eight Core Industries (weight 37.90% in the IIP) was 145.6 in February 2012, up 6.8% year-on-year, with sectoral February movements: Coal +17.8%, Crude Oil +0.4%, Natural Gas -7.6%, Refinery Products +6.2%, Fertilizers +4.1%, Steel +4.3%, Cement +10.8%, Electricity +8.0%; cumulative April-February growth was 4.4% (data provisional).

Rule-based multilateral trade: BRICS urge resisting protectionism and preserving development focus in global trade negotiations.
BRICS trade ministers urged promotion of international trade while preserving WTO consistent policy space, condemned trade distorting agricultural subsidies harming LDCs, and committed to resisting protectionism. They reaffirmed pursuit of an early, development centred conclusion to the Doha Round within the single undertaking, rejected plurilateral initiatives that compromise transparency and inclusiveness, and endorsed a rule-based multilateral trading system. Ministers also agreed to coordinate positions in multilateral fora, strengthen UNCTAD's role, and enhance intra BRICS cooperation on customs, trade facilitation, investment promotion, SMEs, trade data, e commerce and intellectual property to increase higher value added trade.

Marine product export growth highlights rising seafood production and targeted grant support for fish processing infrastructure.
Marine product exports showed higher US dollar value growth while seafood production registered a rising tonnage trend; annual grant-in-aid disbursements under the Scheme for Technology Upgradation/Modernization/Establishment of Food Processing Industries for fish processing are reported for successive years and an updated year-to-date figure, and these particulars were furnished in a parliamentary written reply by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries.