“We hope to conclude the Indo-EU FTA late this year,” said Indian Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday on the sidelines of an interactive session on transaction cost reduction.
Officials in India, who are currently having a dialogue with their counterparts in the EU over the terms of FTA, are scheduled to hold another round of ministerial-level talks in Brussels next month.
According to Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, who will visit EU headquarters to finalize the agreement, the move is likely to open up new export opportunities worth $9 billion for the country.
Sharma said substantial progress had been made in the talks during the last round in August and it was decided that both sides should try to conclude the agreement in 2010.
“We have agreed to meet in November for a ministerial review. After the negotiations in Brussles, we should be in a position to wrap it up or reach an in-principle agreement,” said Sharma.
So far, there have been nine rounds of negotiations between India and EU over the proposed FTA as the country is also in the process of signing similar agreements with Thailand and Malaysia, said Scindia.
“Besides these, we have many other FTAs in the pipeline as well,” he added.
Separately, New Delhi has approved the draft of India’s FTA with Japan, which is likely to be signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Tokyo later this month.
The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), covering about 90 percent of the bilateral trade, is likely to pave way for the Indian pharmaceuticals to get access to the highly regulated Japanese market, according to sources.
Besides, thousands of other products ranging from steel and apparel to machinery will be traded between the countries, either without duty or at substantially reduced tariffs, they added.
The Indian premier, who is scheduled to visit Tokyo on Oct. 24 for an India-Japan summit, is expected to sign the EPA that will cover both trade in goods as well as investments and help boost the $11-billion bilateral trade.
However, some items in agriculture and employment- oriented sectors have been kept out of the purview of the pact to protect sensitive areas, they said.
Efforts have been intensified since beginning of this year to conclude the EPA that has been going on for the last three years.
India has already implemented market opening trade pacts with the ASEAN and South Korea in bid to propogate its ‘Look East’ policy.
The country, which implemented its FTA with Sri Lanka earlier this month, concluded feasibility studies for the trade pact with Australia in May.
