Non-tariff measures being announced by developed economies such as European Union's carbon tax and deforestation regulation limit market access for Indian goods in those markets, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
Addressing a post-Budget webinar, Director General of Foreign Trade Santosh Kumar Sarangi said that the other challenges before Indian exports include insufficient integration with global value chains, high import duties, technology disadvantage, and high cost of logistics (about 8-9% of gross domestic product against 5-6% in developed nations).
He added that the export window is also narrowing because of aggressive industrial policies of advanced nations like USA's Inflation Reduction Act and Chips Act, and UK's advanced manufacturing plan.
Most non-tariff measures are domestic rules created by countries with an aim to protect human, animal or plant health and the environment. NTM may be technical measures like regulations, standards, testing, certification, pre-shipment inspection or non-technical measures like quotas, import licensing, subsidies, and government procurement restrictions.
When NTMs become arbitrary, beyond scientific justification, they create hurdles for trade and are called non-tariff barriers.
Sarangi further said that export credit as a percentage of total merchandise exports is only 28.5% in India.
He noted that total export credit provided is estimated at $124.7 billion as against the estimated requirement of $284 billion for a total merchandise export of $437 billion in 2023-24.
"Total export credit requirement is estimated for 2030 (one trillion dollars goods exports target) at $650 billion," he added.
At current levels of financing of $124.7 billion, the trade credit gap is estimated to reach $525 billion by 2030.
The Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India extends a total insurance cover of only $44.9 billion out of a total export credit of $124.7 billion.
The government is framing schemes for MSME exporters to provide credit at easy terms, promote alternate financing instruments through strengthening factoring services for them, and offer assistance to deal with non-tariff measures imposed by other countries.
The commerce, MSME and finance ministries are working on these schemes..
These schemes are being formulated under the export promotion mission, announced in the Union Budget for 2025-26. The Budget has also announced the setting up of BharatTradeNet as a unified platform for trade documentation and financing solutions.
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