Piyush Goyal said India has signed a trade deal with the UAE in “record” time and “now our talks with the UK are progressing at a fast pace”.
Piyush Goyal said India has signed a trade deal with the UAE in “record” time and “now our talks with the UK are progressing at a fast pace”.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on 9 August that negotiations for a proposed free trade agreement between India and the UK are progressing at a brisk pace. The aim of the agreement is to promote bilateral trade and investment between the two countries.
India has signed a trade deal with the UAE in “record” time and “now our talks with the UK are progressing at a faster pace”, Mr Goyal said.
In such agreements, two or more countries significantly reduce or eliminate customs duties on the maximum number of goods that can be traded between them. In addition, they ease norms for promoting trade in goods and investments. In January, India and the UK formally began negotiations for a free trade agreement. He has set a deadline for completion of talks by Diwali.
He said that India is also negotiating similar agreements with Canada, the European Union (EU) and Israel, adding that several other countries have shown keen interest in negotiating trade agreements with India.
He said the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) want to negotiate these agreements.
However, he said the commerce ministry does not have enough resources to negotiate free trade agreements with more countries at once.
The GCC is a federation of six countries in the Gulf region, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. EFTA members are Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. The five-nation EAEU includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The Minister was speaking at the Traders Entrepreneurs’ Conference in New Delhi.
He asked the association of domestic traders to focus on the quality of the products and work in unity. Shri Goyal informed that the Government is taking steps to reduce the burden of compliance. Around 30,000 rules have either been simplified or removed to reduce the compliance burden.