NEW DELHI: India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed to expedite negotiations on the review of pending chapters of their trade agreement, setting time-bound deliverables for negotiating groups as they seek to address outstanding issues and improve the pact’s effectiveness.
The decision was taken at the 15th meeting of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) Joint Committee, held in Jakarta from October 6 to 9. The committee directed all eight sub-committees working on the review to accelerate negotiations and coordinate closely to ensure measurable progress towards concluding the exercise, a statement by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said..
The next Joint Committee meeting will be held in India in January 2027 in a hybrid format to assess progress and provide further guidance for the timely conclusion of negotiations.
The eight sub-committees of the JC are on Customs Procedures and Trade Facilitation (SC-CPTF), Legal and Institutional Issues (SC-LII), National Treatment and Market Access (SC-NTMA), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SC-SPS) and Rules of Origin (SC-ROO). There is also a sub-committee on standards, technical regulations and conformity assessment Procedures (SC-STRACAP), and trade remedies (SC-TR).
Three sub-committees dealing with legal and institutional issues, national treatment on market access, and rules of origin also met alongside the Joint Committee to advance negotiations in their respective areas.
Within five years of the goods trade agreement activating in 2010 India had started asking for a review of the pact as its imports from Asean zoomed but it could not derive the expected benefits. It took India four years to bring Asean around to the need to review AITIGA. Asean agreed to the review in November 2019 but did not start negotiating on it for two years. Last time both sides set a deadline of end-2025 to complete the review but it was missed. The review was sought because India’s gains from the pact were limited while its trade deficit with the economic bloc zoomed.
The trade deficit with Asean has widened from $4.98 billion in 2010-11, the first full year of AITGA’s operation, to $51.54 billion in 2025-26.
The meeting was co-chaired by Nitin Kumar Yadav, Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce, and Mastura Ahmad Mustafa, Deputy Secretary General (Trade) at Malaysia’s Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry. Delegations from ASEAN member states participated in the discussions.
ASEAN is a major trading partner for India, with the relationship spanning sectors such as electronics, machinery, chemicals, petroleum products, agricultural commodities and other manufactured goods.
Source: The Financial Express
