New Delhi, Oct 27: India is negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) with several countries and groups with talks with Chile ‘quite ripe’ for conclusion and negotiations with Canada making good progress, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said. During his two-day Netherlands visit, he told reporters that negotiations with the South Africa-led Southern African Customs Union (SACU) have started.
The two sides inked terms of reference (ToR) in August to formally start negotiations towards a preferential trade agreement. However, the five members of SACU are Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. “I can see Chile’s quite ripe for conclusion; Canada is making very good progress.
We have just started SACU negotiations, so it may take some time,” Goyal said. Talking about other pacts, he said Mexico is very keen to have an early harvest trade agreement. Also, he expressed hope that continuity of government in Brazil following elections would help speed up negotiations to expand the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with the Mercosur bloc.
Apart from that, Goyal held meetings with Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Heleen Herbert, Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate and Arthur van Dijk, King’s Commissioner of North Holland. He also interacted with members of the Dutch House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation and the Senate Committee on European Affairs to exchange perspectives on bilateral economic relations and the broader India-EU economic partnership.
An important segment was the India-Netherlands Business Forum jointly chaired by Goyal and Sjoerdsma which saw participation of about 200 people including leading Indian and Dutch businesses. The forum focused on opportunities emerging from the India-EU FTA in expanding bilateral trade, strengthening investment partnerships and fostering collaboration.
Goyal also held one-to-one meetings with CEOs from Dutch companies across semiconductors, electronics, logistics, energy and retail, and participated in a roundtable with CXOs of 15 Dutch firms organised by the Indian Embassy in The Hague in collaboration with HSBC Netherlands. He highlighted growing momentum in India-Netherlands ties following elevation to Strategic Partnership and conclusion of India-EU FTA, underscoring Netherlands’ role as gateway to European markets.
IANS