This initiative, combining Government and private participation, is aimed at relieving congestion in airports and seaports and at speeding up the inland movement of goods.

“We are establishing logistics hubs nearer the sea ports ... I think this would address immediate concerns that would be sustainable in the long term”, stated Union Commerce Minister, Ms Nirmala Sitharaman, while inaugurating an ASSOCHAM conference.

The Minister also informed that the review of Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) is underway, with taxation being a key issue: “You cannot be paying tax over tax and exporters cannot be taxed for exporting, we recognize that difficulty and I know GST (Goods and Services Tax) alone cannot give us the solution, in fact the GST would raise the industry’s ambition saying why taxation cannot be simplified and subsume many of tax into GST so that we handle only one.”, Ms Sitharaman stated.