India to accord top priority to national interest in FTA talks: Goyal

India will accord top priority to the national interest in free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.

FTAs are to be entered into after thorough consultation with all stakeholders including industry, and the government will not diverge from this approach for the sake of deadlines, he said.

The minister said this at a meeting which was held to review India's export performance in the first six months of this financial year with key representatives from Export Promotion Councils and industry associations here.

At the meeting, the minister emphasised on sustaining the export momentum and said that exports will be able to wither the global headwinds and will surpass last year's exports by a big margin.

He added that India must keep prospecting for new opportunities in the world market and utilise all such possible chances to expand trade.

A ministry statement said that the industry participants were assured that the government is committed to address the issues raised by them.

The minister also asked them to take full benefit of FTAs to achieve higher export growth in this financial year.

At the meeting, the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) gave a presentation on year-on-year export trends.

The leading and laggard export markets/sectors were specifically highlighted for specific attention and possible corrective actions, it said.

The industry was alerted on the dip in export performance in September.

"...the evolving economic and geopolitical environment required the industry to be attentive and optimistic so that growth opportunities in such new markets are not missed," it said.

Industry flagged certain issues related to the rising of cost of raw materials and subdued demand in certain key export markets due to high inventory levels.

Industry requested for including left out sectors under RoDTEP and rationalisation of existing rates under the scheme, exploring possibility for increased support under Interest Equalisation Scheme(IES) and under Market Access Initiative (MAI), and operationalisation of Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes for additional sectors.

In a separate meeting, Goyal said that India must not restrict itself to be the back-office of the world, but must aspire to be its front office.

He was addressing Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's National Executive Committee meeting here.

The minister asked FICCI to re-orient itself and aspire to become a think-tank rather than restricting itself to being advocates for day-to-day industry issues.

He asked the industry to partner with the government to ensure that the whole nation has access to the multifarious advantages of 5G.

The minister observed that there was a time in India, almost a decade ago, when double digit inflation was considered as normal.

He said that the government had mandated RBI to target inflation and keep it between 2-6 per cent.

He pointed out that while several developed nations were grappling with high levels of inflation, "India has been successfully keeping inflation at moderate level".

Meanwhile in an event on Artificial Intelligence, Goyal noted that the huge talent pool available in the country will definitely help in exploring newer ways to take AI in every sector of economic activity.

"India is going to emerge as the hub of the artificial intelligence revolution across the world," he said.