India’s performance improves in UNESCAP survey

India has scored 90.32 per cent in the latest global survey on digital and sustainable trade facilitation by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific (UNESCAP). Here in the year 2019. was 78.49 percent. India has scored 100 per cent for the Transparency Index and 66 per cent in the component of women’s participation in business. After evaluating 143 economies around the world, the 2021 survey has seen significant improvement in India’s score on all 5 key indicators.

The survey said that India is the best performing country in comparison to South and South West Asia region (63.12 per cent) and Asia Pacific region (65.85 per cent). India’s overall score is also found to be higher than many OECD countries like France, UK, Canada, Norway, Finland etc and its overall score is higher than the EU average score. India has scored 100 per cent for the Transparency Index and 66 per cent in the component of women’s participation in business.

CBIC has been a pioneer in bringing about significant reforms under the umbrella of Instant Customs through a series of reforms to introduce personless, costless and contactless customs. This has a direct impact in terms of improving the UNESCAP ranking on digital and sustainable trade facilitation. In addition, all efforts were made to expedite the imports related to COVID such as oxygen related equipment, life saving drugs, vaccines etc. under the customs framework during the COVID-19 global pandemic. A dedicated Single Window COVID-19 Helpdesk was created on the website of CBIC for EXIM trade so that the problems of the importers could be resolved expeditiously.