Contracting for the second straight month, India's exports shrank by a record 60.28 per cent in April to $10.36 billion, mainly on account of the coronavirus lockdown, official data showed on Friday.
Imports too plunged by 58.65 per cent to $17.12 billion in April, leaving a trade deficit of $6.76 billion as against $15.33 billion in April 2019, according to the data by the commerce and industry ministry.This is the lowest trade deficit since May 2016, when it had stood at $6.27billion.The country's exports had declined by 34.57 per cent in March 2020."The decline in exports has been mainly due to the ongoing global slowdown, which got aggravated due to the current Covid-19 crisis.

The commerce ministry has recommended for continuation of anti-dumping duty on a Chinese chemical used in food and pharma industry with a view to guard domestic players from cheap imports.

In a notification, the ministry's investigation arm Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has said there is a "positive" evidence of likelihood of dumping of Sodium Citrate and injury to the domestic industry if the existing anti-dumping duty would be removed.The designated authority considers it appropriate to recommend continuation of definitive anti-dumping duty" on the chemical, it has said.

The Indian government held high-level meetings to set in motion a strategy to wean away manufacturing from China and fast-tracking efforts by tapping into palpable global anger against the Far East nation amid the Covid-19 outbreak, officials familiar with the matter said.

“Countries such as Japan are already looking to diversify their manufacturing and supply chains to newer destinations…the government is working to address disabilities across sectors, including for pharmaceuticals and automobiles, to try and establish India as an alternate to China for manufacturing for local and global markets across sectors,” one of the officials privy to the matter, told ET. The idea is to spur employment, revenue and earn forex by making India an export hub.

Above 15 million jobs may get lost in India’s export sector with half the orders getting cancelled and rising non-performing assets in exporting units, the apex body of exporters said on Friday.
“With cancellation of over 50% of orders and gloomy forecast for the future, we expect 15 million job losses in exports and rising NPAs amongst exporting units, hitting the economy very badly,” said Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).

The organisation’s estimate comes days after the International Labour Organisation said about 40 crore workers in India working in the informal economy are at risk of falling deeper into poverty during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis

With major economies of the world slipping into a 'near-halt' due to pandemic Coronavirus, Indian exporters find themselves in a state of turmoil as trade in the country's top destinations is paralysed, making it imperative for an urgent relief measures for the exporting industries, the EEPC India said on Monday.
The US, UAE, Germany, UK, Singapore, Italy and China, among others, are the largest contributors to the country's basket of merchandise exports. " Trade is crippled in most of these destinations due to a near collapse of global supply chain even as the cargo movement has stopped. The warehousing capacity is over-stretched with severe blocking of export finance. The international shipping lines are affected. Even the urgent and less bulky cargo through air routes is paralysed with the airlines trimming their operations, " said EEPC chairman Mr Ravi Sehgal.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has sought comments on introducing faceless assessment for imported goods on a national basis, after having conducted pilots at some customs stations over the past year.
CBIC has proposed to restructure existing commissionerates into National Assessment Commissionerates (NACs) and Jurisdictional Port Commissionerates (JPCs), where the former would be virtual, having an all-India jurisdiction and comprising a cluster of faceless asssment will bring anonymity in assessment and cut down the physical interface between the Assessing Officer and the importer or broker to the extent technologically feasible. This will ensure uniformity in assessments across the country, thereby reducing transaction costs and uncertainty amongst the trade,” the CBIC said in a notice on Wednesday.

The continuous contraction in India’s exports is likely to stop next year, but the rate of growth will be subdued on account of the uncertain global trade situation due to rising protectionism.
Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan said that the current slowdown in exports is mainly due to a decline in petroleum products, which constitute 13.42 per cent of the overall outward shipments. This decline, he said, is mainly on account of fall in petroleum prices, which has driven the export value downwards.
However, “the positive growth in the exports of non-conventional commodity groups like electronic goods, drugs, and pharmaceuticals, organic and inorganic chemicals, augurs well for future growth,” 

The new Incoterms 2020 have already been published by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) as the body that publishes these rules since 1930. In last decades there has always been a revision of the Incoterms coinciding with the first year of each of them: 1990, 2000, 2010. The latest version is that of Incoterms 2020 which is expected to be in effect for a decade, until December 2029.
Some of the new issues and changes that have been taken into account in the meetings of the Drafting Committee and, therefore, have been introduced in the new edition of the Incoterms 2020 are - DPU: renaming of DAT, FCA: option of Bill of Lading (BL) with on-board notation, CIP and CIF: different coverage of transport insurance.

India will soon have its own index to estimate the costs of logistics in its top nine export sectors including agriculture, leather, apparel and, gems and jewellery. The department of commerce has begun an exercise to develop sector-specific indices to estimate the logistics costs and bring them down to 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP) from 14% at present as they are higher than those in developed countries.

The government also aims to break into the list of top 30 countries in the World Bank Logistics Performance Index which ranked India 44 in 2018 from 54 in 2014. “Internationally, no one has made sector-specific indices to estimate logistics costs. We have taken the top exporting sectors and will move on to domestic trade later,” said Manoj Pant, director, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT). The institute, an autonomous body under the ministry of commerce and industry, is developing the index which is likely to be released early next year.

Agility, innovation, efficiency, predictability and customer satisfaction are all markers of a successful new-age digital organisation. And they all depend on an efficient supply chain and logistics management.

Though companies across the spectrum know they need to start their digital transformation journeys, very few have actually managed to do so. According to IDG’s 2018 State of Digital Business Transformation report, 89% of enterprises have plans to adopt a digital-first business Transformation report, 89% of enterprises have plans to adopt a digital-first business strategy. However, only 38% of traditional enterprises have one. The numbers are slightly more bullish when it comes to startups, with 55% having a digital strategy in place.

This shows there’s an imperative need for enterprises to take actionable steps to become digital-savvy; those who don’t will surely be left behind

India's containerised trade growth slowed to one per cent during April-June 2019 owing to various factors like growing global trade tensions and liquidity issues in the domestic market, the report said.
According to a report by global integrated logistics company Maersk, the trade growth during April-June 2018 stood at a healthy nine per cent growth, almost three times higher than the global growth average of 2-3 per cent.

"India's containerised trade growth slowed to one per cent in Q2 2019, due to a cocktail of international factors such as slowing trade growth, and growing trade tensions coupled with domestic factors like rural consumer distress, tightening liquidity and a slow-down in key manufacturing sectors," the report said.Both imports and exports were growing at a healthy rate during the same period last year at eight per cent and nine per cent, respectively. However, in Q2 2019, imports have grown at a meager two per cent, while exports have remained flat.