Goyal urged labour-intensive sectors, clusters, and MSMEs to focus on process improvement, skilling, and reskilling to leverage FTAs, guided by five pillars: standard operating processes, production testing and certification, continuous production process inspection and control, shared infrastructure, and workforce skilling.

He proposed institutionalizing quality through a five-pillar agenda: strict SOPs and ongoing inspections from raw materials to finished goods, benchmarking against global best practices, streamlined certification, and shared automated testing infrastructure across manufacturing clusters.

Industry leaders are urged to adopt five pillars—SOPs, skilling, testing and certification, shared infrastructure, and continuous inspection and control—to raise quality.

Despite growth, India’s global trade share remains modest, and uptake of schemes matters; FTAs could risk trade deficits or smuggling of competition from more compliant peers like China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.

India will fund a large portion of international approval costs for micro and small exporters under the Rs 25,060 crore Export Promotion Mission, via TRACE, to help with conformity rules in Europe such as REACH and CBAM.

REACH governs EU chemical rules and CBAM imposes a carbon-based import levy on high-emission products; the scheme aims to ease compliance costs for exporters.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal says the initiative is designed to cut non-tariff barriers and help exporters access new markets by lowering international approvals costs.

Goyal stressed that producing high-quality goods is essential for India’s global competitiveness and for maximizing FTAs’ benefits toward developed-country status.

Analysts view stronger quality standards and regulatory compliance as crucial for long-term export success and better use of FTAs within the global value chain.

Subsidies may not fully offset multi-year compliance costs, and benefits from FTAs depend on MSMEs navigating stringent standards and regulatory processes.

Goyal notes India’s current modest share in global trade and urges industry to capitalize on new market access opportunities from FTAs.

India has expanded its global outreach with nine FTAs finalized in four years, aiming to leverage these pacts to boost exports and target a USD 2 trillion export goal in the next 6–7 years.