The government recently appointed SR Rao as the Commerce Secretary in place of Rahul Khullar who was shifted as the telecom regulator after retirement earlier this month. He comes in when a new trade policy has been announced and hailed by the industry. SEZs are also poised to gain much from a new policy that has created several avenues for investment … so settling down in his new assignment should be a nice expeÂrience for Rao.
A Padma Shri awardee, Rao is known for his work as Surat municipal commÂissioner in mid-1990s, when he took a number of initiatives to clean up and modernise the diamond city that was hit by a plague epidemic in 1994.
Apart from using his core expertise to boost merchandise trading, he takes on Khullar’s recent legacy of a Special Economic Zones (SEZs) reform. One of the main recommendations Khullar was working on was the minimum stipulation of land for an SEZ.
Last fiscal India saw a record trade deficit of $185 billion and it remains to be seen how Rao steers the policy measures to contain the soaring trade deficit and help India achieve $500 billion worth of exports by 2013-2014, according to the government’s target.
Besides, Rao’s experience would also be counted in how emerges as a trade negotiator in negotiating some of the pending yet important bilateral deals such the India-EU free trade agreement.
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