Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said that a working group has been setup to work out a free trade agreement with the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a group.
At the Confederation of Indian Industry’s national conference on multi-national corporations 2021, he also said that India attracted “record” foreign direct investments in the last seven years. He added the trend is expected to continue in the coming years as well on account of major structural reforms being undertaken by the government.
“We have launched (FTA talks) with Israel and already set up a working group to work out with the six GCC nations as a group,” Goyal said.
The minister also said that India will have an FTA with the UAE in the next 60-100 days and an interim agreement with Australia around the same time though it could get operationalised in another six months.
“We will launch (FTA) with the UK and a lot of background has happened. We have launched with the EU, work should start soon. They’ve recently appointed a lead negotiator. We are working to start with Canada, preliminary discussions are underway,” he said.
The minister said that India wants to bring more mutual recognition agreements, and reduce and remove non tariff barriers.
Goyal said that the pickup in India’s economic activity is here to stay, and that both merchandise and service exports to grow to $1 trillion, each.
Besides, the single window mechanism for investment clearances, has 10 states and 18 ministries on board and four more states are likely to join by December.
“Our longer term vision is to go down to the corporations and municipalities,” he said.
On the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking, Goyal said that India wanted to break into top 50 but “another country messed around with it and the entire ranking is now scrapped” but India will continue to work on its own rankings.
Goyal asked states to remove redundant laws, decriminalise local laws, and implement central laws more honestly, and said the Bureau of Indian Standards .
will allow certification for services also, beyond certification for their BIS mark and regular testing.
On being asked about multiple ministries’ involvement in one issue and if a principal ministry could be facilitated, he said: “We are trying to do that in ethanol in some way but not fully successful have just made a beginning”.
The minister said that India is committed to its goal of net zero emissions though the developed countries’ promises of the past are unfulfilled which is grossly unfair to the poor nations.
“In COP26, India was probably the shining star…it probably turned out to be a damp squib because the developed world is not willing to take any major commitments on finance and technology,” Goyal said.
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