1. The foreign trade comprises of 45% of the Indian GDP and so special focus is necessary to foster exports and exporters.
2. MSME’s and small industries are proliferating in different parts of the country unlike the past when their presence was limited to major cities.
3. Reducing the need of compliance.
4. Reducing the expenses and hassle of physically transporting the goods.
5. Encouraging the use of technology to make the businesses more competitive.

In the initial phase, product/services (GI products, agricultural clusters, toy clusters etc.) with export potential in each District have been identified and institutional mechanism in the form of State Export Promotion Committees (SEPC) at the state level and District Export Promotion Committees (DEPCs) at the district level are being created to provide support for export promotion and to address the bottlenecks for export growth in the Districts. Specific action plan to grow exports are being finalized by the DEPC in each District through District Specific Export Action Plans. State export strategy/policy and state agricultural plans are also being finalized by the States/UTs. The District-wise export data is now being generated by the ICEGATE/DGCIS to track the export performance from each District.

Products/services with export potential have been identified in 725 Districts across the country (Including Agricultural & Toy clusters and GI products in these Districts).

• The primary function of the DEPC is to prepare and act on District Specific Export Action Plans in collaboration with all the relevant stakeholders from the Centre, the State and the District.
• District Export Promotion Committees (DEPCs) to be constituted in each District. DEPCs may be headed by DM/Collector/DC/District Development Officer of the District and co-chaired by designated DGFT Regional Authority.
• All key officers related to agriculture, horticulture, livestock, fisheries, handicrafts, handlooms and industry in the district and the Lead Bank Manager along with key Export Promotion Councils, Quality and Technical Standards Bodies, Government of India departments like MSME, Heavy Industry, Revenue and Textiles will be part of the DEPC.
• The initial meetings in the identified Districts are being conducted by the DGFT Regional Authorities in collaboration with the District and State Authorities.
• Regional Authorities of DGFT are coordinating with the District Administration in each District to convene DEPC meetings and take steps to ensure that deliberations on the draft District Export Action Plans are held in these meetings and based on the inputs received from all the stakeholders, these plans are adopted by the DEPCs for its execution. Draft District Export Action Plans have been prepared by DGFT RAs in 451 Districts.
• A database of all potential exporters in each District will be developed and an interface with the Indian Missions abroad will be built to provide them access to exporters in each District for them to market it outside India and find potential buyers.
• DGFT’s District Export hub portal will be developed to further assist local industry to seek information specific to the products identified in the District and showcase their products.
• State/ UTs Government will be assisted by DGFT in preparing an annual “Export Ranking Index” of different districts in a particular State/ UT to rank each district on its export competitiveness. A “District as Export Hub” Mobile App for easy access of Export related information under this initiative is also being planned.

The creation of institutional framework will consolidate the efforts for export promotion and trade facilitation through single window to provide accessible information and support to exporters. The implementation of District Export Action Plans will lead to improvement in trade logistics and infrastructure, information dissemination among local business to scale up and start exporting. The quantifiable targets identified in the DEAPs will guide the various government agencies both at the Centre and the State/UT to work collectively to resolve issues faced by the exporters of the District. District wise baseline data has been started from September 2020 on-wards. This will help in monitoring the progress made in terms of

export performance from the Districts. In the next 3 to 5 years, it is targeted that export growth of double digits is registered from 500 Districts of the country, with significant growth in the exports of identified products/services from each District.