Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said the first phase of the India-US trade pact has been finalised and is undergoing legal drafting.
He expressed the hope that it would be finalised soon and operationalised once India secures a competitive advantage over its peer countries.
“US bilateral trade agreement’s first tranche has been finalised and it is going through final contours, the legal drafting, and we hope to be able to finalise that soon and operationalise that once we get the competitive advantage over our peer countries,” Goyal said here at an event.
He also said that the free trade agreement between India and the European Union will be inked in December and would come into force from February or March next year.
Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said negotiations for the proposed India-US trade agreement were progressing in the right direction, with both countries working towards concluding the deal at the earliest.
“The negotiations are in the right direction. Probably, we are in a very good zone. We anticipate closing the deal and signing it at the earliest possible time,” Agrawal said during a press briefing.
He explained that the agreement would depend on the finalisation of the broader tariff framework in the United States, where a parallel process is underway under Section 301.
“The deal has to be signed when the overall tariff structure is getting formalised. There is parallel work being done in the US also to get back the tariff structure based on some of the outcomes of the 301,” he said.
Agrawal further emphasised that India was seeking preferential access to the American market to ensure its exporters could compete effectively with other countries.
“When you do a trade deal, it gives you not only market access in each other’s markets; it gives you preferential market access in a particular market,” he said.
He added that India’s preferential market access relative to its competitors would form part of the new tariff framework,
Regarding the legal drafting of the pact, Agarwal said it is going on.
(Inputs From Agencies)
