Commerce Ministry looking at ways to increase its bandwidth to negotiate free trade pacts
India for negotiating bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) to boost economic ties, the commerce ministry is looking at ways to increase its bandwidth for undertaking these time and human resource consuming talks, a senior official said. The commerce ministry officials at present are negotiating several FTAs with countries including the UK, Canada and European Union. «Negotiations are really time consuming and energy consuming and human resource consuming.
Therefore, we are trying to increase the bandwidth within the commerce department,» the government official said. Indian trade service officers are expected to be engaged more in the negotiations of free trade agreements. Latin American countries such as Peru are also interested in doing an FTA with India and India is also looking deeply into that, the official said.
South American trade bloc MERCOSUR is also keen to expand the scope of existing preferential trade agreements to an FTA. India and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) group is also looking to negotiate a trade pact. India has also expressed an interest to do these negotiations bilaterally or individually with Africa.
MERCOSUR comprises Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay with Bolivia and Chile as associate members. It was formed in 1991 with the objective of free movement of goods, capital, services and people in the region. In trade agreements, two or more countries either significantly reduce or eliminate customs duties on the maximum number of goods traded between them.
Besides, they also ease norms for promoting trade in services and increasing investments. According to a trade expert, in an FTA, the department of commerce leads the team. The important ministries which are involved in these
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