Piyush Goyal suggests BIMSTEC group members to relook proposed FTA
Piyush Goyal on Wednesday suggested the seven member countries of the BIMSTEC bloc to relook at the progress of Free Trade Agreement talks which are moving at a very slow pace. He said that the members can think of negotiating a preferential trade agreement instead of a full-fledged free trade pact.
BIMSTEC stands for the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation. Its seven members are five South Asian countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka) and two Southeast Asian countries (Myanmar and Thailand).
The bloc has been negotiating a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) since 2004.
So far over 20 rounds of talks have been held. The last one was held in 2018.
«I would like to raise a few fundamental issues about where we stand and what are the possibilities of making this FTA a reality,» Goyal said here at CIIs BIMSTEC Business Summit 2024.
He said that so far 22 rounds of talks have been held for the agreement and this itself raises a question on whether «we need to pause and have a relook at the track where we are going».
The last round of negotiations took place some six years ago, which means something is holding back this FTA.
The reasons for slow progress can be the non-trade barriers or trade barriers coming in the way of normal trade, he said adding the possible impact of other regional FTAs on the BIMSTEC region could be the cause of the delay.
«It could be the trade practices or current trade relationships that could be a reason for this FTA not
