NEW DELHI: India plans to take longer to reduce duties on goods imported from Australia and New Zealand, apart from China, than from other partners under the proposed free trade agreement among 16 Asia-Pacific countries.
This is because India does not have any trade pact with these three countries, officials said. Earlier, India had considered least tariff concessions and a longer phaseout only for China so as to reduce the widening trade deficit with the country. However, that formula did not find many takers.
The fresh proposal is likely to be discussed next week when the members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) meet in the Philippines.
“It is not about tiers now but deviations since there could be one common concession,” said an official aware of the development.
These deviations will help India offer differential tariff concessions to different members of the grouping, said the official, who did not wish to be identified.
RCEP is a wide-ranging free trade agreement that covers goods, services, investment, competition, economic and technical cooperation, dispute settlement and intellectual property rights among 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and their six free trade agreement partners — Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and New Zealand.
“With China opposing India’s move and not many countries supporting India’s proposal on services, it is possible that the non-FTA partners have been clubbed together,” said a Delhi-based expert on trade matters, requesting anonymity.
The RCEP negotiations were launched in November 2012 and the first round of negotiations was held in 2013.
Although the deal has missed many deadlines, it is hoped that a lot of ground could be covered in this round because Philippines is the current chair of ASEAN.
Source: Economictimes.indiatimes.com
