Comments
India and the 10-member ASEAN have agreed to initiate a review of the bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in goods to make it “more user-friendly, simple and trade facilitative”.
“The Ministers tasked officials to work on the details of the review and submit an update at the next Asean Economic Ministers (AEM)-India Consultations,” said the joint statement issued at the end of the ongoing AEM-India Consultations in Bangkok this week. Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal represented India at the meeting.
Rising trade deficit
India is not happy about the fact that its trade deficit with ASEAN has widened significantly since the pact was implemented in January 2010. A NITI Aayog study reveals that India’s trade deficit with ASEAN doubled to $10 billion in 2017 from $5 billion in 2011.
One of the reasons for the growing deficit is the low utilisation of the FTA route by Indian exporters to ASEAN countries because of difficulties faced in negotiating the rules.
A review of the India-ASEAN FTA could help improve utilisation in India by making the pact simpler and more user-friendly, as stated.
In the joint statement, the Ministers welcomed the recommendations of the ASEAN-India Business Council to further promote the potential of bilateral trade through the utilisation of the ASEAN-India FTA as well as cooperation in some areas of mutual interest, such as financial technology, connectivity, start-ups and innovation, empowerment of youth, and women and MSME development.
The Ministers also expressed their support for the fourth ASEAN-India Business Summit and Business Excellence Award, which will be held in Manila next month.
Based on preliminary ASEAN data, two-way goods trade with India grew by 9.8 per cent from $73.6 billion in 2017 to $80.8 billion in 2018.
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.