Commerce Minister Meets 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.