India Eyeing Negotiations Over FTA With Asean Bloc
The review of the agreement is a long-standing demand of the domestic industry and India is looking forward to an upgraded pact, which will address the current asymmetries in bilateral trade and make trade more balanced and sustainable
New Delhi: India is looking at customs and trade facilitation on the review negotiations of the existing free trade agreement in goods with the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations or Asean bloc, months before the Asean-India Summit, scheduled for October this year. Besides, some issues on technical cooperation, sanitary and phyto-sanitary, technical barriers to trade collaborations are on focus too, a top government official said.
The review of the agreement is a long-standing demand of the domestic industry and India is looking forward to an upgraded pact, which will address the current asymmetries in bilateral trade and make trade more balanced and sustainable. “The 10th and 11th rounds of talks between the two sides are likely in August in New Delhi and further in October in Malaysia,” said special secretary in the department of commerce Rajesh Agrawal.
“We are engaged in such negotiations and nine rounds of talks have been concluded so far. The progress till now has been chequered, it is not what we could have been like, but the good part is that we are moving on many aspects, especially on customs and trade facilitation. Further, talks are also moving on issues like technical cooperation, sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT) collaborations,” Agrawal said.
“We also hope there is going to be one physical round in August here and another in October in Malaysia. So we hope that in these two rounds, we should be able to make good progress and try to reach some kind of conclusion when the Asean-India Summit takes place in October-end. The endeavour is towards that direction. Let's see how much we can achieve,” he added.
After the implementation of the agreement, India’s exports stood at only about $38-39 billion annually, while imports from the 10-nation Asean bloc jumped to $86 billion. However, Asean countries have opened fewer tariff lines or product categories for India. India has offered duty concessions on over 71 per cent of the tariff lines to Asean countries.
The members of the Asean bloc include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Indonesia has opened 41 per cent of its tariff lines, while Vietnam 66.5 per cent and Thailand 67 per cent. A free trade agreement in goods between India and the 10-nation bloc Asean bloc was signed in 2009