NEW DELHI: The ministry of commerce is working to codify the experience gained through intensive negotiations on the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in the past few years and compile it as Standard Operating Procedure for future guidance and reference.
“After doing several agreements now we have got this experience, we want to codify that,” a senior official said.
India currently has FTAs relationship with 26 countries. It is negotiating with 44 more. Once done, India will have FTAs with 71 countries covering $337 billion or 74.7% of India’s exports.
Last few years have seen a change in India’s approach to the FTAs and geographical focus has moved from East to West. The negotiations have become more complex. The new FTAs that are being negotiated – including ones with the UK and European Union – involve not just tariff reductions and market access but other areas like intellectual property issues, environment, trade in services and movement of people.
“The aim of SOP is to streamline the FTA negotiation processes as several trading partners of India are coming forward for trade pacts,” he said..
This SOP is designed to ensure thorough analysis, meticulous background work, and systematic reporting throughout the negotiation phases, the official said adding it would also include structured interactions with various ministries and stakeholders both before and after negotiation rounds.
The SOP will also deal with what should be India’s strategy going forward and which countries should be opted for FTAs. It will also give broad direction to what should be India’s views on issues that crop up in new age FTA like climate, gender and labour standards
The elements of the SOP were discussed in detail at the retreat of the officials of the Department of Commerce on May 16-17 which also saw the participation of officials from other ministries.
Former commerce secretaries, trade experts and government officials from ministries including finance, IT and electronics, and mines participated in the deliberations.
“Our SOP draft is ready. We have presented that in the meeting and now some more improvement is required. It will be circulated to core ministries in about a month,” the official said. Other issues that were discussed at the retreat include India’s trade strategy and vision 2047; economic assessment and modelling of FTAs.
A separate session was also organised on leveraging India’s FTAs to address measures such as Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), supply chain disruptions, critical minerals, and artificial intelligence.
Source: The Financial Express
