Dispelling the impression that there has been a pause in negotiations on free trade agreements, a senior official has said that all meetings are going according to schedule and only in the case of Peru it has been decided to initiate the next round of talks after the finalisation of overall strategy and standard operating procedure.
Talks with Peru on FTA resumed last year after a pause of four years. Since the start of negotiations seven rounds have been completed and for the eighth round the SOP is awaited. The lst round of talks were held in April this year.
“No FTA has been paused. All our FTAs are progressing as per schedule,” the official said without specifying any other reason for the pause in case of Peru. The SOP or FTA are expected to be finalised by the end of December. These SOPs will lay down the step wise procedure – right from identifying a country for the FTA to taking the negotiations to their conclusion.
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Peru has emerged as the third-largest trading partner of India in Latin American and Caribbean regions. In the last two decades, the trade between India and Peru has increased from $ 66 million in 2003 to around $ 3.68 billion in 2023. Last FY the trade between India and Peru stood at $ 4 billion with India’s exports at $ 921 million and imports at $ 3.1 billion.
For the rest of the FTAs the engagement with the partner countries will intensify in the coming weeks, the official said. The team of officials from Association of SouthEast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is already in Delhi for the fourth round of talks on review of the Asean India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA). The talks will continue till November 22.
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In the first week of December India and Australia will be meeting for the next phase of negotiations on the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement. In September India and the European Union completed the ninth round of talks on their FTA and this week discussions between the Commerce Secretary and the Director General (Trade) of the European Commission.
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