Services Conclave 2014, the second edition of the ongoing initiative of the Union Ministry of Commerce & Industry and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will be held on 12-13 November 2014 in New Delhi. The two-day event will lay emphasis on widening India’s basket of services exports, to cover sunrise areas like education, health tourism, creative entertainment and many more segments that hold export potential.

The focus of the Conclave will be three pronged. First, to explore newer paradigms in services exports, which is presently dominated by the exports of IT and IT Enabled services (ITES). Two, it will attempt to identify the challenge areas in services exports and strategize a roadmap for its sustained and accelerated growth in short, medium and long term. Three, the Conclave will lay down modalities for closing the gap between merchandize and services exports to create more employment and business opportunities in the sector.

To be inaugurated by Minister of Finance, Corporate Affairs and Information & Broadcasting, Shri Arun Jaitley, addressed by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce & Industry, Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, and attended by several top ranking senior government functionaries and top professionals and experts, the Conclave will have 11 plenary sessions, each devoted to either a specific sector or a challenge domain. The carefully chosen panelists will help creating newer ideations and approaches leading to cross fertilization of ideas and in evolving a matrix of practical tips and suggestions. Importantly, the valedictory session of the Conclave will catalogue important takeaways of the Conclave aired by the stakeholders to give critical inputs for policy tooling.

Importantly, the other Conclave sponsors are Center for WTO Studies (CWS), Federation of Indian Export Organization (FIEO) and Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC).

The Conclave assumes importance against the backdrop of increasing share of the services sector in the GDP, which stands at 57 per cent in 2013-14 and is increasing. Against this, the annual export of services is pegged at $151.47 billion, while the export of merchandise stands at $312.5 billion. For closing in this wide gap, innovative approaches and out of box solutions are needed. While IT and ITeS will continue to be the dominant export segment, quantum jump in the sector can be realized by augmenting exports of animation, gaming, designing etc., where India has considerable talent pool. Also, such ventures need minimum investment and can also be individual centric enterprises, which will be cost effective.

Another related area is export of professional services. Creation of a highly competitive talent pool, infusion of newer initiatives for skill development and identifying and tracking niche destinations for export of professionals are critical in this regard. Similarly, with about 8.9 million tourist arrivals by 2020, tourism will become not only a major foreign exchange earner but also an employment provider. An important area in the tourism sector is medical tourism, which is showing steady growth in the last few years. Availability of state-of-the art medical technologies, internationally acclaimed hospitals and infrastructure etc. can achieve the potential in medical. These subjects will come for sharp focus at the Conclave

Acceleration of services exports needs a good understanding of the underpinnings of the multilateral negotiations and bilateral regional trade agreements, covering the services sector. Awareness of international services standards in healthcare, education, logistics etc. are important to make a mark on the exports. A deep understanding about Visa regimes in different countries and entry restrictions are also important. Focus on logistics services is crucial to create a conducive business environment. The Conclave is structured to discuss each of these challenge areas in details.

Services export policy: diversify beyond IT to creative and professional sectors while aligning trade rules and market access. Expansion of services export paradigms targets diversification beyond IT/ITES into sectors like education, health tourism, creative entertainment, animation, gaming and design, with a roadmap of short-, medium- and long-term measures to boost services receipts and narrow the merchandise-services export gap. The Conclave emphasises stakeholder-driven plenaries to generate practical policy recommendations, while linking export acceleration to mastery of multilateral negotiations, regional trade agreements, international services standards, visa regimes and logistics services.