With little or no progress in the Doha Round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) multilateral trade talks for the last more than one year, India is proactively working on concluding Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Japan, European Union and Malaysia to expand its trade basket. Officials in the Commerce Ministry said that India's initiative last September to trigger a new synergy into multilateral trade talks and re-energise Doha Round had not taken off. In view of these developments, the Government had redefined its strategy and was now focussing on bilateral pacts to enhance trade engagement.
Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said that efforts were on to give a new push to FTA negotiations with European Union, Japan and Malaysia and things were expected to fall in place within one year. “We are making efforts to conclude the talks as soon as possible. I will meet my counterparts from the EU, ASEAN countries, Japan and Malaysia to speed up the process,” Mr. Sharma said before his departure to Vietnam on Wednesday to attend a two-day Ministerial Meeting of ASEAN Trade Ministers. India signed trade in goods agreement with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) last year. The agreement came into force from January 1 this year. However, out of the ten nations that form ASEAN, only four — Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia — have operationalised the agreement so far. The Commerce Minister hoped that the remaining six countries would also operationalise the pact soon.
Mr. Sharma said it was essential for the country to look for new trading partners in view of the continued below par growth of traditional markets like the U.S. and European countries.
Mr. Sharma will meet on Thursday Japanese Trade Minister Masayuki Naoshima, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gutch and Malaysian Minister for International Trade and Investment Mustapa Mohamed.
