Government Trade Agenda: Streamlining Visa Issuance for Foreigners Working in Non-PLI Sectors

While the government is working on simplifying visa norms for Chinese professionals working in PLI sectors, DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh informed that work is on to extend simplification of visa norms to non-PLI beneficiaries from abroad, including China, working in PLI sectors.

He said that the removal of tariff barriers on electronic components would be approved on a case-by-case basis and that the duty inversion would eventually have to be withdrawn, and not only in the electronics sector.

According to the DPIIT secretary, Tesla is yet to conduct a fresh investigation after Elon Musk cancelled his visit to India earlier this year, and the process of finalising the guidelines is underway with the Ministry of Heavy Industry, which is currently evaluating applications not only from Tesla.

He added that an e-commerce policy is in the works but it is not yet known when it will happen.

Stating that liberalisation of the foreign direct investment (FDI) regime in several sectors was currently at the stage of internal deliberations, he emphasised that foreign direct investment from countries bordering the mainland anyway constituted less than 1 per cent.

The Secretary stated that, in connection with the contemplated change to the base year for the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), some sort of update was certainly possible, but pointed to studies from other countries that indicated that different base years were used for different types of indices.

The government has already discussed the PPI model with MoSPI (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) and has also presented it to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The model is to be presented to the National Statistical Commission (NSC) before the government takes a final decision.