New Delhi: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal Friday said a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Oman will be finalised soon, and Qatar also wants to negotiate a pact with India.
He said that India has already signed such acts with a number of developed economies, including Australia, the UK, the UAE, Mauritius, and four-European nation bloc European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
Besides, India is negotiating trade pacts with the European Union (EU), the US, New Zealand, Chile, and Peru.
These agreements, he said, will open up new opportunities, markets, and investment possibilities.
Negotiations with the EU are moving at a faster pace, Goyal said, adding Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal is visiting Brussels next week to take stock of the trade pact talks.
The India-EU official team will meet for the 13th round of negotiations from September 8 here in the national capital. After that, European Commissioner for Trade Maros Sefcovic is likely to visit India next month to take stock of the progress of free trade agreement negotiations with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal.
“We are working (for a trade agreement) with EAEU, Oman FTA should get sorted out in the next few weeks. Yesterday, Qatar’s minister told me that they want to start negotiations…Of course, we are talking to the US for a Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA). First phase (of BTA), we have planned to complete by fall (October-November) this year. All these engagements will open up new opportunities, new markets, and new investment possibilities,” he said here at an industry event.
Saudi Arabia, too, is interested through the six-member GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) bloc. Oman is the third-largest export destination among the GCC countries for India. India already has a similar agreement with another GCC member, the UAE, which came into effect in May 2022.
GCC members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In such agreements, two trading partners either significantly reduce or eliminate customs duties on a maximum number of goods traded between them.
They also ease norms to promote trade in services and attract investments.
India and the five-nation Eurasian Economic Union bloc, August 20 this year, inked terms of reference to start formal negotiations for a proposed free trade agreement. The five members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.
India and the US are negotiating a BTA since March. So far, five rounds of talks have been completed. The US team has deferred its visit to India for the sixth round of talks, which was scheduled for August 25. The talks are postponed due to the imposition of steep 50 per cent tariffs by the Trump administration on Indian goods from August 27, barring a few sectors.
“The whole world wants to increase trade with India,” Goyal said.
PTI
