Commerce Ministry to seek Cabinet nod soon for Indo-Japan trade pact.

NEW DELHI: The Commerce Ministry will seek the Cabinet's approval soon for the India-Japan free trade agreement (FTA) likely to be signed during the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's forthcoming visit to Tokyo in October.

Singh is expected to attend the India-Japan Summit scheduled on October 25.

"The negotiations have been completed and we want to take the Cabinet nod by the month-end," an official told PTI.

The Prime Minister headed Trade and Economic Relation Committee (TERC) has already cleared the market opening pact with Japan, with which India has a bilateral trade of $ 10.4 billion.

He said the three year old negotiations were completed after resolving the contentious issues, including those related to pharmaceutical sector.

India did not want to take more intellectual property rights obligation than provided in the WTO's TRIPS agreement.

"We got what we wanted in the agreement," the official said.

The immediate beneficiary of the pact would be the textiles sector, which will be able to export its product to Japan without any duty.

"Indian side has more advantage in textile sector, as Japan will immediately eliminate duties in the sector," he said.

Indian pharma exports too are likely to get significant boost from the agreement.

In all duties would be reduced or eliminated in about 10,000 product lines.

For India, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan would be its third such pact. It has already signed similar agreements with South Korea and Singapore.

The two sides have recently reached at an in-principle agreement for the pact.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com