Comments
The proposed India-EU free trade agreement (FTA) may pave a way for some European car majors to flood the Indian automobile market with their vehicles, a senior official of Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL) said here today.
The Indian government should create “a level playing field” for the auto industry in the country, Jnaneswar Sen, Senior Vice President - Marketing and Sales, Honda Cars India Ltd said.
“This kind of FTA is going to remove that level playing field...Europe (automobile market) is not growing. It is only de-growing. It is very easy for some of them to sell the same cars here,” he said.
Speaking after the launch of Honda’s sedan ‘Amaze’ here for Andhra Pradesh market, Sen said, “This (FTA) is going to impact everyone in terms of investment, employment generation. All we want is a level playing field.”
“It is not just car manufacturers, but also others, such as suppliers of spare parts, who will be affected by the (proposed) FTA,” he added.
EU is demanding heavy duty cuts to ensure sale of its automobiles. However, the auto industry in India is strongly opposed to duty cut in the sector.
Notwithstanding the differences resulting in delay in inking of India-EU free trade agreement, the Commerce and Industry Minister, Anand Sharma had yesterday said the negotiations are progressing “very well”.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.