Providing an update on progress of India’s trade agreements, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the country is negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) with several countries and groups. He said talks with Chile are ‘quite ripe’ for conclusion, while negotiations with Canada making good progress. He added that negotiations with the South Africa-led SACU (Southern African Customs Union) group have started. India and SACU have inked terms of reference (ToR) in August to formally start negotiations towards a preferential trade agreement. The five members of SACU are Botswana, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa.
He also expressed optimism over expediting the negotiations to expand the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with the Mercosur bloc following the continuation of the same government in Brazil after the election. Mercosur is a trade bloc in South America comprising Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Paraguay. The India-Mercosur PTA came into effect on June 1, 2009. The agreement provides preferential tariff concessions on 450 tariff lines or product categories by India and 452 tariff lines by the Mercosur side. Now both sides are looking to expand the scope of the pact.
On Eurasia FTA, he noted that the Eurasia FTA is only about goods and does not include services, therefore, the country is still assessing the benefits of entering into that agreement. India and the five-nation grouping, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), on August 20 last year, inked the terms of reference to formally start talks for the agreement. Besides, he indicated that Ecuador (a South American nation) wants to do an FTA, while Egypt has invited India to discuss potential ways to increase engagement.
Meanwhile, he said that negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Israel are slow due to the West Asia crisis. He added that the negotiations may take some time, but India is ready to speed up negotiations. The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and was established in 1981 as a political, economic and security grouping. India already has a trade pact with the UAE and Oman.