New Delhi: India is at present negotiating free trade agreements with a number of trading partners, including the US and European Union, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.
India is working with its ‘trusted’ trading partners through these agreements to boost economic ties, he said.
“We have all seen trade being weaponised. We have all seen the importance of having trusted partners around the world,” he said, adding that at this moment, India is in talks with individual countries and groups of nations totalling about 50.
The remarks come at a time when a steep hike in tariffs by the US has disrupted global trade. The Donald Trump administration has imposed a 50 per cent import duty on Indian goods entering American markets since August 27.
The minister informed that GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) too is interested in trade pact talks.
GCC is a union of six countries in the Gulf region — Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain.
New Delhi has already implemented a comprehensive trade agreement with the UAE. Talks with Oman are on the verge of completion.
Bahrain and Qatar want to enter into negotiations with India, he said, adding that the GCC is also talking.
“The whole six-nation group would like to engage. We are talking to New Zealand…We are in active discussions with the US and with 27-nation EU,” the minister said here at the Ficci annual general meeting.
India and the US are negotiating a bilateral trade agreement. So far, six rounds of negotiations have been completed. They have aimed to conclude the first phase of the pact by the fall of this year.
Further, the minister stated that India is reviewing its trade pacts with 10-nation ASEAN bloc and with Korea to bring more balance to it.
Asean members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
“We are working with Eurasia (EAEU), which has started negotiations yesterday or the day before yesterday. We are equally engaged to start negotiations very quickly with Israel. Canada and India are looking at CEPA (comprehensive economic partnership agreement). Next week, they are going to start a conversation around that,” he added.
The five-member South African Customs Union (SACU) and Mercosur group also want to negotiate, he said.
SACU nations include South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini, and it is the world’s oldest customs union, over a century old.
Mercosur is a trading bloc in Latin America, comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
India and the five-nation grouping, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), on August 20, inked the terms of reference for the agreement.
Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan are the five member countries of EAEU.
India and Canada have agreed to resume negotiations for the CEPA with an aim to increase the two-way trade to USD 50 billion by 2030.
In 2023, Canada paused negotiations for a free trade agreement with India.
In a trade agreement, two or more countries negotiate provisions either to significantly reduce or eliminate import duties on the maximum number of goods traded between them. They also ease rules to promote the movement of professionals and attract investments.
India has so far implemented such agreements with a number of nations, including Singapore, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Australia.
