India, ASEAN FTA finalised
The Economic Times | 17 July 2009
India, ASEAN FTA finalised
by P R Ramesh, ET Bureau
SHARM EL-SHEIKH: India and the ASEAN countries have finalised the free trade agreement, which now awaits only the formal task of being
signed upon.
The signing of the India-ASEAN FTA, which has been delayed due to a variety of reasons, was discussed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s meeting with his Malaysian counterpart Najib Abdul Razak on the sidelines of the NAM summit here.
Sources said that it is now only a question of formally signing the agreement, which is scheduled to be implemented from January 1, 2010.
The text of the trade-in-goods agreement has already been finalised while discussions on agreements in investment and services will start soon. The FTA seeks to eliminate tariffs on over 4,000 products, which include a host of items from chemicals to electronics.
The negotiations had been held up by objections from countries like Indonesia which had wanted India to reduce tariff on items like crude palm oil, pepper, refined palm oil, tea and coffee. But all that has now been sorted.
The Manmohan Singh government had late last year announced that the India-ASEAN FTA would be signed at the ASEAN summit which was initially supposed to take place in December. But the summit was postponed to the end of February due to the political troubles in Thailand. By then the Manmohan Singh government here was in election mode, making it difficult for the FTA to be signed especially in the backdrop of the economic recession. Now, the government has to be get Cabinet approval so that the agreement can be signed at the first opportunity.
Under the agreement, duties on the 4,000 items will be brought down over a period of six years. The 10 Asean members are Brunei, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand. All the involved governments also have to get the FTA approved at their levels.
It is understood that the Malaysian prime minister, during the bilateral meeting with Mr Singh, said that Malaysian companies were interested in car production in India. Mr Singh welcomed the participation of Malaysian companies in road construction projects.
Meanwhile, Mr Singh also held a bilateral meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet. Vietnam is seen as an important country for India’s ’Look East’ strategy. Vietnam-India trade stands at $2.8 billion per year. It’s also looking for cooperation in education, science & tech and higher education.
