| 20 January, Thursday (3:00pm-4:30pm) Session 3B: Trade Facilitation |
Identifying Challenges and Improving Trade Facilitation in Northeast India
Author/s: Sanchita Basu Das, Soumya Chattopadhyay
Although the Government of India (GoI) accords high economic and strategic importance to the northeast region (NER) of India and recognizes it as a trade gateway for India’s engagement with ASEAN and BIMSTEC, the region suffers from insufficient infrastructure hampering economic activities and trade. The paper will identify priority border points (BP) in the region and will discuss the challenges of trade facilitation (TF) components based on a four-pillar framework - ‘at the border’ infrastructure, customs, non-tariff measures (NTMs) and transport facilitation - adopted from SASEC Trade Facilitation Strategic Framework (2014-2018). It will provide a list of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ interventions needed for the region to promote trade. Discussion in the paper will combine both primary and secondary research. It will undertake semi-structured interviews with policymakers and private sector both at central and state government levels. There will be field trips made to selected BPs in NER to validate findings. Discussions will also use secondary data, published reports, government press releases and media reports to complement primary sources of interviews, government documents and agreements.
JEL codes: F13, F15, R11