India-EU Free Trade Agreement Negotiation Is Progressing Well: Union Minister Piyush Goyal

Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has said that the India-European Union free trade agreement (FTA) negotiation is progressing well.

Goyal made the remarks while addressing the media on Tuesday (16 May) after the first India-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) meeting in Belgium's Brussels.

Goyal said that the TTC is helpful as it is supplementing the FTA negotiations and the free trade pact will make India-EU relationship the defining partnership of the century.

The minister said that India is engaging with the EU on Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as it is not the EU’s intention to create a barrier to trade but to find a way forward towards sustainability as part of collective efforts, according to a Commerce Ministry release on Wednesday (17 May).

He stressed that India and the EU are working together to find the right solution to the CBAM issue.

Goyal said that India’s tariffs are very often misconstrued to be very high on most items, raw materials, intermediates but in reality the duties are very low.

The minister said that the duties on technological items which are helping the Indian economy grow are very low.

He said that the actual applied rates of tariffs are lower than the agreed bound rates at WTO.

Goyal mentioned that the political guidance received from the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen has been truly encouraging in setting the path for outstanding engagement.

He praised the creation of TTC as a platform of coordination to address key issues related to trade, trusted technology and security between India and EU.

He said that both India and the EU are open market economies, vibrant democracies and pluralistic societies driven by the common interest of security, prosperity and sustainable development.