MoU signing between DGFT and DHL
Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Ministry of Commerce and
Industry, Government of India, has been actively engaging in boosting
e-commerce exports from the country, leveraging its ‘District as Export Hubs’
initiative. The goal is to promote and enable micro, small and medium
enterprises (MSMEs) to explore the international markets through e-commerce
channels.
Taking this initiative further, DGFT has been
collaborating with various e-commerce platforms and other service providers to
handhold and do capacity building and training sessions in the identified
districts under the districts as export hubs initiative. In a similar
collaboration, today. DGFT partnered with the global logistics service
provider, DHL, through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which
will cover 76 districts in three phases, to conduct capacity-building
sessions, training, and workshops for making Indian MSMEs export-ready.
During the MoU signing event, Sunil Barthwal,
Commerce Secretary, highlighted the importance of e-Commerce ecosystem, and
pointed out the strides taken by India to create a digital infrastructure which
can be leveraged to encourage MSMEs from rural India to connect to the world
market. He also pointed out the recent initiative of Bharat Mart and how such
warehousing initiative would further India’s foreign trade. He conveyed his
best wishes for the initiative and hoped that this would help Indian
entrepreneurs to bridge the gap in knowledge and enter the world of
international trade.
While welcoming the partnership, Santosh Sarangi,
DG, DGFT highlighted that the objective of this collaboration is to introduce
exporters/MSMEs to the digital commerce space so that they get an opportunity
to export “Make in India” products, tap international customers and overcome
the challenges related to logistics while exporting through the e-commerce
route.
Looking forward to this partnership, John Pearson,
Global CEO of DHL Express emphasised that DHL is the first international
express operator to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Directorate
General of Foreign Trade (DGFT). This partnership with the Government of India
will further solidify DHL’s commitment to India and aligns with DHL’s Go Trade
program to empower MSMEs in the global market.
DGFT and DHL aim to bring together a team of knowledge experts to assist
Indian exporters/MSMEs in the identified districts through handholding sessions
and develop a start-up kit for first-time Exporters/MSMEs wanting to go global.
Aligning with the Foreign Trade Policy 2023, in the
past few months, DGFT has signed MoUs with Amazon India and Shiprocket covering
20 and 16 districts respectively. These collaborations with e-commerce
platforms and service providers have encouraged series of outreach events
by DGFT- Regional Authorities to onboard new exporters; promote first-time
exporters, and handhold MSME producers to become exporters through cross-border
e-commerce sales under the District as Export Hub initiative.