NEW DELHI-The Import-Export Wallahs

NEW DELHI The Import-Export Wallahs B M THE annual announcement of import- export policy by the Union Commerce Ministry has become over the years a well-rehearsed ritual, performed with due ceremony and solemnity. Its impact on the overall volume, composition, and direction of India's foreign trade is minimal. It does not touch more than a quarter of the country's imports. As for exports, the determining factor is their competitiveness in foreign markets and no amount of control and licensing can help matters though, of course, exports of certain selected items may be banned on the grounds that these are needed in the home market. The Commerce Ministry, too, seems satisfied with making a spectacle of shifting certain items from one list to another through an elaborately contrived licensing and control regimen.