India's Trade Agreement Talks With EU, US Still Underway

New Delhi: The government on Monday said that talks for proposed trade agreements with the European Union (EU) and the US are still in the discussion stage. India and the US are negotiating a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) and they are aiming to conclude the first phase of the pact by fall (September-October) of this year. Similarly, India and the EU are also negotiating free trade agreements (FTA).

“The FTAs, which India is doing, are one of the key enablers to promote global capability centres (GCCs) in the country. The FTA with the UK was just announced on May 6 and with the EU and the US, it is still going on, with the US, discussions are on,” commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal said at the CII event here.

In June 2022, India and the 27-nation EU bloc resumed negotiations for a comprehensive free trade agreement, an investment protection agreement and a pact on geographical indications (GIs) after a gap of over eight years. It stalled in 2013 due to differences over the level of opening up of the markets.

India and the EU are, therefore, aiming to conclude the free trade deal by the end of this year. “Today’s agreements are different from the traditional FTAs, which were confined to traditional trade. The new pacts are a more complex set of agreements which include services also,” the secretary said.

He further said that now there is also an institutional mechanism in these pacts to look at issues like harmonising regulations and standards and resolving disputes, if any arises. “And these are important facets of GCCs and modern FTAs will lead to the innovation corridor, which will facilitate GCCs in India,” he said.

The new trade agreements, Barthwal said, are addressing a whole gamut of issues, which could be one of the reasons why negotiations of these pacts take time to conclude. “In the FTA with the UK, there is a chapter on innovation, which was not the case earlier,” he added.