India plans to curb trade deficit — cut import flab and boost non-IT exports

The Union government is looking at several moves to curb India's trade deficit. Government sources have told CNBC TV18 that India is looking to cut down on cheap and non-essential imports through quality control orders (QCOs), as well as substitute imports through local production by incentivising manufacturers through PLI schemes.

While the government is looking to improve the manufacturing ecosystem by making exports competitive through a lower cost of production, it also wants to set realistic export targets based on the WTO trade growth forecast and the IMF forecast for growth rates of countries which import goods and services from India.

Stating that a decline in Chinese imports to India demonstrated improvement in the local manufacturing capacity and the electronics sector, government sources pointed out that WTO had also revised its growth estimate for India in 2023 to 1.7 percent from its earlier estimate of 1 percent in September 2022.