The India-European Union Summit will be held in New Delhi on Friday with the focus being on the forging of better trade ties. India and EU are currently negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which is said to be poised at a delicate stage.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will lead the Indian delegation at the summit in which European Council president Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso will be leading the EU team.
Negotiations for an India-EU Free Trade Agreement had commenced in 2007 and had been expected to conclude in 2011.
However, differences on the extent of opening of the market came in the way of the Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA), the official name of the FTA. EU is India’s largest trading partner with bilateral trade touching $91.3 billion during 2010-11.
According to agency reports, commerce secretary Rahul Khullar discussed the progress made thus far in the India-EU trade negotiations with PM’s principal secretary Pulok Chatterji on Monday.
Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma had recently said that though substantial progress has been made on the FTA front with the 27-nation bloc, some loose ends remain to be tied up. Among other things, under the proposed Free Trade Agreement, India wants the EU to reduce import duties on passenger cars.