Commerce Minister with World Bank team

Minister of Commerce and Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu, met with the World Bank team in New Delhi on Thursday. The team was led by Ms. Caroline Freund, Director of Trade, Regional Integration and Investment Climate and Junaid Ahmad, Country Director for the World Bank in India. Discussions were held to explore ways to strengthen World Bank support towards India's development with collaboration in specific areas of trade, logistics and investment.

The Minister highlighted the work being done by the Ministry for developing a National Integrated Logistic Policy (NILP). The Policy will focus on increasing the capacity of storage and warehousing and other value added services. Multimodal logistics parks, integrating various transportation modes, are also being developed right up to the district level. The Minister also highlighted the work being done by the Ministry towards identifying specific products and markets to increase India's exports by USD 100 bn. He underlined the need for understanding product specific supply chains for India to integrate effectively into global supply chains. The (NILP) will reduced the cost of goods and make Indian product more competitive.

In the meeting it was agreed   that a workshop will be conducted with World Bank and concerned Ministries in order to identify specific interventions required to streamline logistics in the country with an aim to integrate Indian products into Global value chains.

Trade and logistics cooperation: workshop agreed to streamline logistics and strengthen supply chains to boost export competitiveness. Discussions with the World Bank focused on collaboration to develop a National Integrated Logistic Policy emphasising expanded storage and warehousing, value added services, and multimodal logistics parks to reduce logistics costs and improve export competitiveness; parties agreed a workshop to identify specific interventions and product specific supply chain measures to integrate Indian products into global value chains.