Indian Trade Service (ITS)

An Indian Trade Service Officer has to serve in Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Department of Commerce, World Trade Organisation, SEZs, Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and various other ministries. Apart from these, they get opportunity to serve at WTO, UN ESCAP, UNCTAD etc.

At DGFT ,

• Formulate the export-import policies and implement them.
• Manage a variety of export promotion initiatives and export incentive programmes.
• Monitoring the exports obligations.
• Tariff Rate Quota allocations.
• Import and Export licensing and regulation thereof
• The Foreign Trade Regulations include functions for investigation, enforcement, and adjudication.

And many more functions they perform at DGFT.

At Department of Commerce

The Department of Commerce (DOC) is responsible for formulating suitable policies and putting them into practise in order to develop, promote, and regulate India’s international trade and commerce. It serves as the focal department for the country’s external trade affairs.

The  role of an ITS officers is to facilitate creation of enabling environment and infrastructure for accelerated growth of India’s trade in goods and services. External trade negotiations and trade agreements at multilateral, regional and bilateral levels are negotiated by the Department.

At present posts, up to the Director level, have been kept reserved in the DOC for the Indian Trade Service officers.

At SEZs

ITS officers supervise the operation of the zone and involve in liaisoning with the respective State and Central Government agencies for the successful operation of the Zones.

“The Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in the country, notified under the SEZ Act, 2005, are hubs for economic activities related to foreign trade, with the objectives of generation of additional economic activities, promotion of exports of goods and services, promotion of investment from domestic and foreign sources, and creation of employment opportunities along with the development of infrastructure facilities.”

SEZs are managed in accordance with the SEZ Act of 2005 and the SEZ Rules of 2006, and each Zone is led by a Development Commissioner (Selected from the ITS service) who has been appointed by the Ministry of Commerce to oversee the operation of the Zone, including approving the units within the zone and maintaining contact with the relevant State and Central Government agencies for the Zones’ successful operation.

Other personnel from various departments, including Customs and Excise, assist the Development Commissioner in managing the Zone.

At Directorate General of Anti Dumping

“The Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) was established in 1998 to provide an organizational structure to implement WTO Agreement on Antidumping (ADA) and Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) and the corresponding municipal laws. Many ITS officers are posted in DGAD from time to time.”

To carry out antidumping and anti-subsidy investigations as investigating officers to investigate the nature and extent of dumping and/or subsidisation and to recommend the extent of duty to neutralise the effect of dumping and/or subsidisation, the investigation wing of the DGAD is solely staffed by members of the Indian Trade Service up to the level of Directors.

Roles in various ministries

ITS officers occasionally work for different other ministries, departments, and organisations in the centre and states in addition to the Ministry of Commerce. In departments like the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Ministry of Power, the Ministry of Home Affairs, etc., officers have excelled. For ITS officers, three positions have been set aside: one in the Ministry of External Affairs (Deputy Secretary post), one in the Ministry of Textiles (Joint Secretary post), and one in the Ministry of Agriculture (Joint Secretary post).