Impact of IT related Trade Facilitation Measures on SMEs: An Overview of Indian Experience
Following widespread economic reforms, India undertook focused and dedicated trade facilitation (TF) initiatives for improving infrastructure and the regulatory regime dealing with its external sector. Information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITES) are prominently placed centre-stage of the trade process reforms. The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) spearhead the TF initiatives, supplemented by the Information Technology Act (2000) and eTrade Initiative of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI). Wide coverage of the EDI/ICEGATE system and introduction of RMS are some of the key achievements, apart from new efforts to improve inter-agency connectivity through a centralized server of CBEC. These initiatives have contributed to a reduction in dwell time across ports and at air cargo points. The Systems Unit of the Customs Department periodically releases dwell time improvement details which helps the trading community in a major way. However, as this study and survey shows, the gains are not equally distributed across the trading community.