NEW DELHI: India is setting up dedicated think tanks for global trade and investment issues, a model effectively adopted in the developed world that is expected to be helpful especially because the country lacks a permanent negotiating team at international fora.The Department of Commerce under the commerce and industry ministry is setting up four centres — for trade and investment law, trade promotion, regional trade and capacity building — to conduct quality research as well as to influence international discourse on issues of India’s concern. “These centres will help the government with more research and institutional memory,” said an official.Unlike other countries, where trade negotiators remain on the job for 20 years, the trade negotiating team in India is not permanent. This is because trade negotiators are pulled from government services such as the Indian Administrative Service, Revenue Service and Economic Service, and their continuation in a position is governed by the usual transfer posting rules, making it difficult for them to continue for long durations.Experts said frequent changes in the team affect both the quality of negotiations at international fora and the final outcome.They said the centres will help fill the gaps in the current structure of official trade delegations, in which there is often inadequate representation from think tanks. “These centres should do systematic and unbiased analyses on all critical issues in bilateral and multilateral negotiations,” said Biswajit Dhar, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and former head of Centre for WTO Studies. “They should then advise the government and provide negotiating options. This is what seems to be lacking at present.”To be set up on the lines of the existing Centre for WTO Studies, all four centres will also be part of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade but located elsewhere. “Continuity is very important in negotiations, which these centres can offer in the long run,” Dhar said, commenting on the solid backup these centres will offer in case of frequent movement of negotiators.The ministry has already appointed the head for Centre for Regional Trade, which will conduct independent research and advise the ministry on trade and investment relevant to specific regions including Africa, ASEAN , China, EU, Japan and Korea, among others.