Two senior government officials said the government is exploring ways to engage experts from the public and private sectors during negotiations on major bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) to ensure the best possible outcome for India.
The Center has set an export target of over $2 trillion by 2027, and will try to negotiate terms that will serve India’s interests by involving experts in services, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, trade remedies and digital trade, two said one of the officials, requesting anonymity. “When we go for trade agreement negotiations the idea is to have a team of experts. Any country, especially if we negotiate with developed countries, they have experts at the negotiating table. Services, commodities Or experts in agriculture take part in the negotiations. There should be a feeling that the officials negotiating a deal for India have no subject knowledge. It could be a government official or a private sector expert.”
He said that private sector experts may also be roped in for carrying out export promotion activities by the commerce department in key markets.
India has signed an FTA with the United Trade Emirates (UAE) and an interim trade agreement with Australia. It is also in talks with the UK, EU, Canada and Israel for bilateral trade deals.
A second official, requesting anonymity, said the discussions were going on internally, and approval from the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) would need to be obtained before the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) would approve it.
India will begin talks with Australia to convert the mini-trade deal into a full-fledged Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) within two months, and expects to conclude early crop deals with Canada and the UK this year.
The proposal is to strengthen the interaction ecosystem with clearly defined focus areas with the right expertise and strong end-to-end processes. “The goal is to get the optimum mix of talent with experts and generalists drawn from the private and government sectors,” he said.
Queries sent to the spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Thursday remained unanswered till press time.
The proposal is part of the government’s broader strategy to reform the Department of Commerce and make the mission a stronger active role in market intelligence, lead generation and trade promotion for local research.
The department is also exploring the establishment of separate special teams for bilateral negotiations and World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. “Most developed countries engage private players, mostly lawyers and economists, in FTA negotiations. India has always been inclined to use economists from academic institutions, but involving private participants would be a wise decision,” said Pradeep S Mehta, Secretary General, CUTS International.
He said it would be interesting to see whether he would be part of the frontal negotiation team or work on the back-end. “There is no institutional memory when officers are transferred. This is a problem. Bringing in private players can solve this. The government has already allowed lateral entry to experienced people.”
Arpita Mukherjee, Professor, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, called it a “very good move”. “Most developed countries such as the US and developing countries such as Vietnam follow this process, where their main industry bodies provide detailed feedback on sectors during the domestic market and export negotiation process representing 70-80% of stakeholders.” He said that there is no holistic consultation process in India. Therefore, the Commerce Department’s proposal will prove to be effective in signing good deals for India.
The Department of Commerce is also looking at setting up a dedicated ‘Trade Promotion Body’ to take forward the promotional strategy, export targeting and execution.
India’s exports had reached a record $418 trillion in 2021-22.
The agreements signed under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came under intense criticism for increasing imports from partner countries instead of benefiting India’s exports. The share of imports from the 10-nation bloc ASEAN in the Indian basket has increased from 8.2% in FY2011 to 12% in FY21, while exports have remained stagnant at 10%. Similarly, while South Korea’s imports increased from 2.83% in FY11 to 3.23% in FY2011, the export share increased from 1.5% to 1.6%.
Centralization and digitization of business facilitation processes are other key areas the department is working on to drive compliance and governance.
dilasha.seth@livemint.com
download
The app will get 14 days of unlimited access to Mint Premium absolutely free!