As negotiations on the review of the Asean-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) continue, in the coming round of talks the Indian side may seek an interim mechanism that provides protection to the sectors that are most impacted by the surge in imports from the 10-nation bloc, a senior official said.
“We may seek some flexibility in the tariff concessions that have been given in the agreement and explore some mechanism whereby some protection can be offered to sectors that have seen maximum import surge following FTA,” the official said without offering details.
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The negotiating team from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be in New Delhi from November 19-22 for the next round of negotiations on the review of AITIGA as both try to complete the process by 2025.
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“We are expecting substantial progress during the coming round of talks. We have some expectations.”
In between physical meetings both sides are also engaging in virtual discussions. Apart from essentials like palm oil and coal, the biggest imports fromAsean are computers, telecom equipment, integrated circuits, machinery, plastics, and iron and steel..
The review of AITGA which was agreed to in 2019 on the demand by India after imports from Asean surged and trade balance became huge is focussing on getting the balance back and checking likely use of the agreement by third countries.
The review covers eight areas and for each of these separate sun-committees have been set up. Apart from national treatment and market access and rules of origin the other areas covered by the ongoing review are standards, technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures; sanitary and phytosanitary; legal and institutional issues; customs procedures and trade facilitation; trade remedies and technical cooperation.
India’s trade deficit with Asean widened from $ 4.98 billion in 2010-11, the first full year of operation of AITIGA to $ 38.4 billion in 2023-24.
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