New Delhi, June 3: India hopes to make some headway in its free-trade talks with the EU by their next meeting in July.
Trade negotiators have met six times in the last two years but have not arrived at a consensus yet on the items on the free-trade list, on whom all duties will be eventually eliminated.
“India is committed (to a) very fast and expeditious conclusion of this agreement. We are making progress on these lines,” said Neeraj Gupta, joint secretary, ministry of commerce.
Gupta, speaking at a Ficci seminar, said non-trade issues such as labour, environment and animal rights were “not the issues at this point of time. We are talking more on substantive issues like tariff and non-tariff barriers”.
In a resolution adopted in Strasbourg, France, the European parliament said the India-EU free trade deal should conform to the World Trade Organisation agreement on standards relating to packaging, marking and labelling, besides its benchmarks to protect human, animal and plant life.
Trade with EU has the potential to reach $572 billion by 2015 once the agreement with the 27-nation bloc is implemented.
India’s exports to the EU were $34.5 billion in 2007-08, while imports stood at $38.43 billion.
Major items of exports to the EU include coffee, tea, mineral fuels and apparel. India’s major imports include organic chemicals, pearls and precious stones. India has signed a free-trade agreement with Sri Lanka.
Negotiations for the free-trade agreement with Asean and Korea, along with a new India-Nepal treaty have been completed. “We shall be taking all this to the cabinet soon,” new commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma had said after taking charge last week.
Sharma will be meeting the US trade representative Ron Kirk in Bali on June 6 and 7 and will discuss the stalled WTO negotiations under the Doha round.
He said it was important that India remained committed to completing the Doha negotiations. “The issues that had come in the way would have to be discussed and adequately addressed,” he said.
Source : The Telegraph