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19 terms found.
India's quinquennial trade policy document setting out export import rules, incentives, and objectives. Current: FTP 2023.
FTP 2023 sets targets for USD 2 trillion exports by 2030. Key schemes: RoDTEP, Advance Authorisation, EPCG.
Directorate General of Foreign Trade — India's primary export-import policy body issuing IEC and administering FTP schemes.
DGFT IEC is the first requirement for any Indian exporter. DGFT administers all India export incentive schemes.
Production Linked Incentive Scheme — India government incentive paying incremental sales-based subsidies to boost manufacturing.
PLI covers 14 sectors including pharma, electronics, textiles, food processing. Total outlay: USD 26B.
Indian government initiative to encourage foreign and domestic companies to manufacture in India.
Make in India supports FDI into Indian manufacturing. Aligned with PLI and FTP to build India's export manufacturing base.
Foreign Exchange Management Act — Indian law governing foreign exchange transactions and capital account.
FEMA governs all India-EU trade finance transactions. RBI FEMA regulations govern LC issuance and FX accounts.
Goods and Services Tax Identification Number — unique 15-digit number assigned to each GST-registered business in India.
Indian exporters must have GSTIN. GST on exports is zero-rated — exporters claim refund of input GST paid.
Indian exporters are entitled to refund of GST paid on inputs used in exported goods — exports are zero-rated under Indian GST.
Indian exporters can export under LUT (zero GST) or pay IGST and claim refund. Most exporters use LUT.
Declaration by an Indian exporter to claim zero-rated export status under GST without paying IGST.
Indian exporters file LUT with GSTN to export without paying IGST. Must be renewed annually.
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs — India's apex customs authority administering customs duty, GST, and customs procedures.
CBIC issues AEO certification. Advance rulings on HS classification available at CBIC's Authority for Advance Rulings.
Export Import Bank of India — apex financial institution for India's international trade and investment financing.
EXIM Bank provides buyer's credit to EU buyers of Indian capital goods. Lines of Credit to emerging market buyers.
Special Economic Zone — designated area in India where export-oriented units operate under special economic regulations.
Indian SEZ units export without payment of Indian customs duties. 200+ SEZs in India.
Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority — promotes Indian agro-food exports.
APEDA registration is mandatory for Indian agro-food exporters. Key for India-EU agro mandate origination.
Engineering Export Promotion Council — apex body for Indian engineering goods exports. Issues COO for engineering goods.
EEPC India organises Hannover Messe India pavilion — the best B2B platform for India-Germany engineering trade.
Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India — promotes Indian pharma, biotech, and medical device exports.
PHARMEXCIL is the gateway for Indian pharma companies seeking EU, USA, UK, UAE market access.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations — apex body of all Indian export promotion organisations. Issues COO.
FIEO's Indian Exporters Directory is a primary source for mandate identification.
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry — India's oldest and largest apex business chamber.
FICCI bilateral business councils are key networking platforms for India-EU trade mandate origination.
Confederation of Indian Industry — industry-led non-profit with 9,000+ members and 10 overseas offices.
CII overseas offices in Brussels, London, Singapore, Dubai facilitate India mandate origination.
Import Export Code — mandatory 10-digit identification number issued by DGFT for any import or export from India.
Very first requirement for Indian exporters. Online application through DGFT portal. 2-3 working days.
Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India — government export credit insurer covering buyer default and political risk.
AJG recommends ECGC cover for all India-EU mandates involving new buyers. Covers 60-90% of loss.
Can't find a term? The lexicon is updated monthly. Use the enquiry form to request an addition.
Request a term definition →Totality lens · 32 points to ponder · 16 user POV + 16 developer POV · this hub
User POV — for the practitioner navigating the Lexicon hub
Eight dimensions
A practitioner can in principle look up every trade-and-finance term they will encounter in cross-border practice — 312 entries spanning Incoterms, customs vocabulary (HS, BCD, CESS, IGST, AD/CVD), banking instruments (LC, SBLC, BG, factoring, forfaiting), shipping documents (BL, AWB, CMR, packing list), regulatory acronyms (CBAM, REACH, BIS, FSSAI, FDA), and the trade-finance-specific vocabulary that confuses newcomers (UCP-600 articles, ISBP, INCOTERMS sub-clauses).
In practice users land on three to five terms per session, typically driven by reading something elsewhere that referenced the term. The 312 breadth is for completeness; the conversion from lexicon to deeper engagement happens via the per-term cross-link into tools, FTAs, or library nodes that contextualise the term. Pure lexicon-only sessions convert poorly; lexicon-as-bridge sessions convert well.
Search-driven inbound resolves to a specific term page 85 percent of the time (the highest specificity of any hub on the site — search intent for terminology is sharp). Hub navigation accounts for 15 percent. Conversion via the cross-link into tools or FTAs runs 1.2-1.5 percent of term-page sessions.
What works: short, accurate definitions (under 80 words for the headline definition), a worked example from real trade practice, a cross-link to the relevant tool or FTA, and the alphabetical-plus-categorical hub navigation. The lexicon is one of the higher-trafficked Tier-1 hubs because it appears in search for high-frequency terminology queries.
What does not work: encyclopedic-length entries (kills mobile read-through), pretending every term has a single definition (Incoterms have changed every five years; HS codes are revised every five years), and hiding the worked example under a fold. Earlier iterations that buried the example reduced cross-link click-through.
The common pitfall is treating the lexicon as a static reference. It is not — Incoterms 2020 differs from 2010, HS-2027 will differ from HS-2022, BIS standards revise routinely. The lexicon mitigates by tagging every entry with the version and effective-from date; users who miss this often quote outdated definitions.
Counter-intuitively, the most-trafficked terms are not the most arcane. 'FOB', 'CIF', 'LC', 'BL' get more queries than 'forfaiting' or 'unilateral autonomous tariff suspension'. The hub honours this with a top-25 most-trafficked-terms band at the top, treating popular-but-shallow queries as legitimate first-encounter learning.
The single highest-leverage move is per-term cross-linking into tools and FTAs — this is what converts lexicon traffic into deeper engagement. Worked examples are the second priority; without them, definitions are abstract. Maintaining version tags is the third — outdated lexicon definitions are worse than no definition.
Eight user intents
Newcomers to cross-border trade, students preparing for trade exams (NCFC, IIFT, CITP), customs brokers verifying terminology, exporters doing first-time-FTA work, journalists checking terms before publication. The most-engaged segment is the SME-exporter doing self-education prior to first export.
The irreducible essence: every trade term used anywhere on the site, defined accurately, exemplified, and cross-linked to the practical tools that operationalise the term. The lexicon is the shortest path from 'what does this acronym mean' to 'this is what it means and here is how I would use it'.
Best entered as a just-in-time reference while reading something else, or as a structured study aid for those preparing for trade examinations. Re-entry as terms evolve (Incoterms 2030 will arrive; HS-2027 will replace HS-2022) is essential for ongoing accuracy.
Global; the AJG focus weights the terms most relevant to India-EU-GCC trade lanes plus the universal trade terms. Less-relevant regional vocabulary gets coverage but with sparser depth. Filter by category (Incoterms, customs, banking, shipping, regulatory).
Lexicon is misunderstood as glossary-as-decoration. It is not — terminology precision is operationally consequential. A misread Incoterm changes who pays for what and when risk transfers. The hub exists because most public glossaries either over-simplify (single sentence per term) or over-formalise (legal-text quotation without practical example).
For first-time learners the highest-leverage sub-paths are: (a) start with the top-25 band (covers 70 percent of practical encounters); (b) read each entry in 2-3 minutes (definition + example + cross-link); (c) follow the cross-link into a tool to see the term in operational context; (d) return to the lexicon as needed during contract drafting.
Trust: ICC for Incoterms (the canonical authority), WCO for HS, ICC UCP for documentary credits, the relevant national customs authorities for jurisdiction-specific terminology. AJG's value-add is the practitioner overlay — the worked example and the cross-link.
Proceed by querying the term you want, reading the definition, scanning the example for context, following the cross-link if it touches your active decision. Bookmark the lexicon URL for repeat reference; the URL structure is stable.
Developer POV — for the architect, maintainer, future contributor to this hub
Eight dev dimensions
Lexicon composes from data/lexicon-data.php (312 entries × 8 fields: term, category, version-tag, definition, worked-example, cross-links, sources, effective-from). Helpers: ajg_lexicon_all(), ajg_lexicon_by_slug(), ajg_lexicon_by_category(). Single-file render via lexicon.php hub at root; per-term pages routed to /lexicon/{slug}/ via front-controller. Zero runtime API.
CollectionPage with ItemList of terms; each term page emits DefinedTerm + Article (the worked example) + isPartOf the lexicon DefinedTermSet. BreadcrumbList walks Home → Lexicon → {Category} → {Term}. FAQPage answers 'how often is the lexicon updated', 'what is the version-tag', 'how do I request a new term'.
Forward to /tools/ for the tools that operationalise each term, to /ftas/ for terms that appear in FTA texts, to /library/tree/ decision-nodes that reference the term. Cross-content injector heavily pulls lexicon terms into other pages. Link weaver hyperlinks all 312 lexicon terms automatically site-wide — this is one of the highest-impact link-weaver targets because terms appear in nearly every prose page.
Hub renders <50ms server-side at p95. Per-term page <40ms (small payload). HTML payload <70KB pre-gzip for the hub. Lighthouse Performance 97+ mobile, 99+ desktop. The lexicon is the lightest of the Tier-1 hubs.
Hub renders an alphabetical index at the top with sticky-on-scroll category-filter. Per-term page is single-column mobile-first. The 32-point TOTALITY block reflows standard. Tap targets 48px minimum.
AAA contrast; semantic dl/dt/dd structure for term/definition pairs where appropriate; semantic article + aside for the worked example. Skip-to-content present.
Every term URL emits unique title, meta, canonical, OG+Twitter, JSON-LD per schema_markup, dateModified, and 600-1,200 word body (varies by term complexity). Hub canonical at /lexicon/. Sitemap entries in sitemap-lexicon.xml (313 URLs: 1 hub + 312 terms).
Adding a new term requires: append to data/lexicon-data.php with 8 fields; the hub picks it up. Adding a new category requires hub UI extension. Updating a term version-tag requires data-file edit + dateModified bump.
Eight dev intents
Maintained by AJG principals; version-tags refresh annually around Incoterms / HS revisions; ad-hoc additions on user request. Future contributors should understand the version-tag discipline — outdated definitions are worse than no definition.
For the architect: the lexicon is the terminology spine that the rest of the site references. Architecturally committed: per SO #14 zero runtime API, per SO #6 URL/DP increase. The 32-point TOTALITY block on the hub gives evaluator authority signal.
Refresh: annual major-revision cycles (Incoterms every 5y, HS every 5y, BIS routinely); ad-hoc on user request. Sitemap regenerates on data-file change.
Files: lexicon.php (hub root), data/lexicon-data.php (registry), includes/totality-hubs-block.php (32-point). Sitemap: sitemap-lexicon.xml.
High-trafficked, high-search-intent, low-ambiguity-per-page; the lexicon stabilises the rest of the site by providing terminology authority.
Highest-leverage extension: term-version-history view (showing how a term has evolved across editions); second: term-prefix autosuggest in the universal search header.
Authoritative: ICC, WCO, national customs authorities. Defer to these for canonical text.
Proceed by editing data/lexicon-data.php; respect version-tag discipline; smoke-test.
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