BUSINESS
Trade negotiators from India and Australia will intensify their engagement on the proposed Comprehensive Economic Cooperation over the next two months to achieve a closure before Australia enters the election phase. “Ministers have guided the officials to see if the CECA can be expedited. We will be engaging with each other over the next two months to see that those sensitivities can be brought down and can be reduced until we can achieve a closure,” additional secretary in the department of commerce Rajesh Agrawal said. “Otherwise Australia goes for election next year, maybe agreement will go beyond that. Depending on the work we are able to do in these two months,” he added. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal was in Australia late last month for wide-ranging discussions on trade and economic ties between the two countries. The CECA builds on the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement which was in the nature of an early harvest deal. To the five subjects or policy areas that ECTA covered, 14 more have been added to the CECA. On review of Asean- India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) India is seeking to address tariff asymmetries that Indian exports suffer and the demand was reiterated at the Asean-India Economic Ministers Meeting and bilateral meetings with member states by minister Goyal. Asean members include Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. India maintains that while it has eliminated tariffs on 74% of the products for all 10 Asean members, it has got different levels of zero-duty access in each country. “What we have got is higher tariff elimination from low order economies and low tariff elimination from fast growing and big economies. This tariff asymmetry needs to be addressed.so that it is a balanced FTA in the review process. It has been appreciated and acknowledged by the Asean side,” Agarwal said. India and Asean goods trade agreement came into force in January 2010. “We are discussing the issue with them. We would like to go countrywise (on tariff concessions). Asean is a 10-country bloc and not a customs union,” commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal said. “We would like to see a certain amount of differentiation because all of them are at different levels of economic development. This will give us latitude to have a better fit of the tariff concessions. As practice Asean does not follow it. They like to have a single set of concessions. We are trying to discuss it and trying to see what flexibility we can build in the review so that asymmetries can be ironed out,” Agrawal said. In the recently concluded 9th round of negotiations on India-European Union FTA both sides focussed on core trade issues covering goods services, investment and government procurement along with rules of origin (ROO), sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade and trade remedies. The proposed India-EU-FTA has 23 policy areas or chapters and discussions were held on 20 of them. In the meeting India also raised concerns around carbon tax and other measures the EU is taking that will result in barriers to trade and increase costs. “The focus essentially was what is key interest and key expectations on market access. Also discussed new regulations like CBAM, deforestation or other host of regulations how they will impact trade,” additional secretary in the department of commerce L Satya Srinivas said. On India-UK trade talks, another official said that resumption of negotiations are expected only after November after the new government presents its first budget on October 30. Before both countries entered into the election mode 14 rounds of talks had been held between them on the agreement. None
What’s New
Spotlight
Advertisement
Featured News
Latest From This Week
Popular News
