You are cordially invited to a webinar being organised by NITI Aayog and Trade Promotion Council of India on Digitisation and its impact on Trade on September 25 at 4:00 pm.
The pandemic period was accompanied by an immensely volatile international trade environment. Lockdowns, rising cases and demand fluctuations upended the entire ecosystem of trade, be it rising freight costs, low container availability, shipping capacity, and even essential staff functions.
While the situation was changing everyday, the paper-based system of trading woefully exposed how underprepared we were for this scenario. CEOs responded swiftly to manage the situation, but 75% of them admitted to be using digital for the first time, according to a McKinsey Global Survey of Executives. They had clearly woken up to the fact, however, that this would be the new normal even post the pandemic. According to a digital trade report released by Hinrich Foundation (a philanthropic organization) and the All India Management Association (AIMA), digital trade is likely to create a Rs. 3,331 thousand crore economic opportunity for India by 2030.
Digitisation and lower human intervention are regarded as key foundations to drive trade growth. After India’s ratification of the Trade Facilitation Agreement of the World Trade Organization in April 2016, the country has introduced a series of reforms focused on infrastructural upgradation, digitisation and automation.
While these initiatives are laudable, experts feel several gaps need to be bridged, especially vis-à-vis standardisation and coordination of processes across ports and awareness and acceptability of new initiatives among the users.
Two critical sectors that are undergoing massive digital transformation in this regard are logistics and banking. Banks have taken important digital initiatives such as intelligent document recognition, replacing wet-ink signatures with e-signatures and implementing electronic bank guarantees. The recently announced National Logistics Policy is strongly oriented towards digitisation and interoperability across the supply chain, thereby cutting costs and reaching out to small and medium enterprises.
This webinar on the progress and potential of digitisation as a game changer for foreign trade, being organised by NITI Aayog and Trade Promotion Council of India will deliberate on:
- The impact of digitisation on trade in India and industry experience of the same.
- The experience of COVID-19, and how digitisation can help us prepare better for such situations in the future.
- Challenges and concerns of industry when it comes to trade digitisation.
- Perspectives of trade digitisation from banks and logistics service providers.
- What initiatives/roadmap can the industry expect in the coming years from government, banks and logistics players.
Panelists for the session include:
- Dr Badri Narayan Gopalakrishnan, Lead Adviser & Head, Trade & Commerce, NITI Aayog and Member, Committee for Advanced Trade Research, TPCI
- Anand Rajkumar Chordia – Director (Technology & Innovation), Pravin Masalewale (Suhana) & Founder, The Eco Factory Foundation
- R S Subramanian, SVP South Asia, DHL Express
- Dr K. Rangarajan, Professor & Head, Centre for MSME Studies & Head Kolkata Campus, IIFT and Member, Committee for Advanced Trade Research, TPCI
- Adil Zaidi, EY India Partner and Economic Development Advisory Leader
- Nandini Bhattacharyya, Global Trade Product Head, ICICI Bank
The session will be moderated by Virat Bahri, Deputy Director, Media & Corporate Communications, Trade Promotion Council of India.
