Webinar on “Has import substitution strategy worked for India?”

Trade Promotion Council of India (TPCI) successfully organized  a panel talk on the “Has import substitution strategy worked for India? Challenges and road ahead.” on 1^st June 2021. The esteemed panelists talked about import substitution strategy under trade policy and its feasibility to  encourage production in the domestic market.

Trade Promotion Council of India (TPCI) successfully organized  a panel talk on the “Has import substitution strategy worked for India? Challenges and road ahead.” on 1^st June 2021.

In this one and half hour session the esteemed panelists talked about the import substitution strategy under trade policy and its feasibility to  encourage the production in the domestic market.

The purpose is to change the economic structure of the country by replacing foreign goods with domestic goods strategy that seeks to develop industrial capacity by shielding domestic producers from foreign competition, especially helping SMEs. 

The talk entailed a progressive replacement of imports by domestic production, which is precisely the strategy we had pursued for a long time. We finally recognize its importance of augmenting domestic production viz-a -viz switching to outward orientation.

The idea of doing this session was to deep dive and do an objective analysis of the policy of import substitution in India and its impact. Also, how the industry looks onto this and what challenges they are facing. Idea was to generate perspectives out of this deliberation which will churn the policy makers and industry both with appropriate insights and help draw policy accordingly for economic growth of the country.  

The esteemed speakers were;

• Prof. Manoj Pant, Director at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
• Ajit Pai, Distinguished Expert & Consultant to Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog
• Alok Shekhar (IAS), Principal Secretary, Industries & Commerce, Government of Punjab
• A. Bipin Menon (ITS), Development Commissioner, Noida Special Economic Zone
• Sanjay Grover, Vice President, International Business Division, Kirloskar Pneumatic Company Limited
• Kapil Malhotra, Sr. Vice President- Marketing, Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited

Topics which were covered included 

• How far did the import substitution as a strategy work from India? Did it help thrust exports?
• Is import substitution strategy pursued by India not against free and fair trade and WTO compliant
• How practical it is to implement it as ploy to prevent Chinese goods into India
• Justification for indiscriminate and indefinite protection and incentives to domestic Industry
• Fact finding on – ODOP/ PLI Schemes / vocal for local/ Make in India- gains and misses
• What role SEZs can play
• Import-substitution policies in the government’s post-Covid-19 stimulus package, specifically in the MSME- how far this is helping industry especially smaller players in state
• Challenges in implementing import substitution policy in India
• Can such an import-substitution policy deliver economic growth for India? Or is this mere rhetoric
• Road ahead 

Please find below the link of the webinar