ASEAN, India agree to resume FTA talks
Business Standard, India
ASEAN, India agree to resume FTA talks
By Jaishree Balasubramaniam
24 August 2006
Press Trust of India/Kuala Lumpur:ASEAN today requested that India make further tariff concessions in its list of goods and services offered under a beleaguered Free Trade Agreement (FTA) as the two sides agreed to resume FTA talks suspended by the 10-member grouping because of alleged lack of progress.
"They have to make further concessions, otherwise it will be a standstill," Rafidah Aziz, Malaysia’s International Trade and Industry Minister, said after the India-ASEAN Economic Ministers’ consultations here.
Rafidah, who co-chaired the talks with Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, declared that the 10-member grouping has not given a deadline for the FTA negotiations.
"Deadlines are immaterial, we are still determining the basics," she told a press conference, adding that deadlines had been changed many times.
Nath said the meeting had been "constructive" and "expedious efforts will be made" to get the India-ASEAN FTA negotiations moving.
In a bid to accelerate the slow moving ASEAN-India FTA talks, India last Friday offered new tariff concessions covering over 90 per cent of the grouping’s exports to it.
India had revised its earlier tariff reductions offered for 69% of the items raising it to 94.6% of the items. New Delhi also offered to substantially reduce import duty on some highly sensitive products which were of significant export interest to certain ASEAN members.
These were refined palm oil, from 90% to 60%, Crude palm oil, from 80% to 50%, black tea, from 100% to 50% and pepper, from 70% to 50%.
