INDIA LOOKING AT FTAS TO ACHIEVE $5 TRILLION ECONOMY

‘There is a lot of focus on ensuring that agreements aren’t delayed by red tape; PMO is directly monitoring the work’.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

By early this year, India and the United Kingdom are likely to agree on a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA). When this happens, this will be India’s first FTA with a member of the G-7 club.

Official sources told The Sunday Guardian, already six rounds of talks between the two, with the last being held on 16 December, have been completed, with the seventh round scheduled for early this year, during which the “minor” details will be ironed out. In the last round of discussions, officials covered 11 policy areas over 28 separate sessions.

These FTAs and Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) are being directly monitored at the level of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), which is pushing hard to achieve the task of India becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2025. “There is a lot of focus on ensuring that agreements don’t get delayed due to bureaucratic red tape. The PM staff is personally monitoring the work,” an official source told The Sunday Guardian, while responding to why India was pushing for trade agreements at such a quick pace.

Earlier in June, India and the European Union (EU) restarted the FTA discussion after a gap of eight years. On Thursday, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said that he was hopeful of the FTA with the EU being completed by the end of 2023, something that was also echoed by Swedish foreign trade minister Johan Forssell after Sweden took over the Presidency of the 27 nations grouping earlier this month.