Government to hire 1,000 professionals to help exporters

NEW DELHI: The government plans to hire 1,000 young professionals to work with businesses and exporters across the country to drive greater utilization of the benefits of free trade agreements and help India diversify its product basket and export markets.While recently implemented agreements such as those with Australia and the United Arab Emirates have seen high utilization of concessions, those with ASEAN, Japan and South Korea have seen relatively low utilization, which the government believes is partly due to poor drafting of the agreements.As Indian businesses focus more on the growing domestic market, the government hopes to use lower tariffs under the free trade agreement to further push goods out of the country, thereby boosting manufacturing.These professionals will carry out activities across India, interact with chambers of commerce and exporters, help them explore overseas markets and find potential exporters.