India's Global Value Chains: Integrating LDCs

India’s Foreign Trade Policy of 2015–20 has the broad objective of promoting the ‘Make in India’ initiative. This policy aims at raising India’s participation in world trade, as well as increasing the domestic value-added content in India’s exports and promoting ‘brand India’. One of the ways in which these three objectives can be simultaneously achieved is if India initiates its own global value chains (GVCs) in a manner that it not only increases its share in world trade, but also increases its global competitiveness. In this context, the Trade Competitiveness Section (TCS) of the Commonwealth Secretariat has identified India’s lead products – those where India can increase its exports by forming its own GVCs. The study estimates additional exports worth USD 23 billion in 35 identified products in the country’s top 50 markets. Further, 129 inputs are identified which can be sourced more competitively from 20 least developed countries (LDCs). To actualise this trade, India’s Commonwealth SME Association has been launched to provide a sustainable platform for buyers and sellers from India and LDCs to meet. A product/market-wise strategic plan of actions is currently being designed to promote exports of finished products and imports of inputs from LDCs.