India and the European Union (EU) are gradually moving towards convergence in terms of finalising the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday. The Indian delegates along with Goyal had a meeting with European trade negotiators, as they visited Brussels from October 26-28.
“We have agreed to close 10 out of 20 chapters. Another four or five chapters have in principle been broadly decided. And on more and more issues, we are leading towards convergence so that when their team visits next week for the next round of negotiations or the Trade Commissioner visits India, maybe end of November or sometime in December, we should be in a position to make significant and substantial progress towards closure,” said Goyal while addressing the media on Wednesday.
The EU trade negotiators will also be coming to New Delhi next week to further proceed on the negotiations. Both the sides have agreed to respect the sensitivities of each side and yet conclude a mutually beneficial agreement.
Some of the major points of contention have been safeguard duty imposed by EU on steel, high tariff on auto imposed by India, and carbon emission levy. While commenting about CBAM, or the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, Goyal said, “It's moving in the right direction.”
CBAM is a levy imposed on exported goods, production of which results in emission of carbon above a certain threshold.
He assured that there have been significant interests from European ministers and industrialists to come and invest in India. “Ministers from Germany and some other countries, and a large number of meetings with European businesses have shown that more and more countries and almost all businesses today want to expand relations with a resurgent, strong, decisive, democratic and aspirational India,” added Goyal.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday also met a delegation of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade in Delhi.
The FTA talks, as they aim to deepen India-EU trade and investment ties, are gradually progressing to their final stage, with both sides looking to conclude them by the end of the year. While the Commerce Minister refused to set any deadline for the conclusion, both sides are optimistic that it would be closed at the earliest, preferably by the end of the year. They held over 15 rounds of negotiations spread across two decades.
Meanwhile, the trade talks between India and the US are also progressing in the right direction, said the commerce minister.