Time for Change

The Exim community should not be disheartened by the fact that India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries could not formalise a free trade agreement (FTA) owing to differences on the negative list.

In the past years several FTAs with India were up for questioning as critics thought that agreements with a couple of nations went against India’s interests. Rightly this time around, the Commerce ministry has assured India’s Exim Inc. that the country’s interests would not be compromised.

I agree that any FTA should not harm the interests of our local industry and the agreement should lead to investments and enhanced trade.

However, the government should also not waste time on lengthy negotiations. With the fate of the WTO talks hanging in uncertainty, FTA with our regional partners can be a good answer.

I feel a compromise formula must be reached so that both parties are in a win-win situation. It’s a shame that despite staying in the same region, we are still unable to sort out our differences. We should take the example of European nations which carry out 65 percent trade within themselves while in Asia we do only 5 percent trade. This figure has to increase if we are to receive global recognition.

The Doha Round of trade negotiations was put into deep freeze on 24 July, after a meeting of ministers from six key trading nations collapsed over divisions on how to cut farm subsidies and tariffs. Even though Lamy said that some potential compromise numbers were informally floated at the 14-hour long G-6 meeting on 23 July, the divisions on agriculture were so pronounced that industrial tariffs were not even directly addressed.

Freight Quotes play an important role in the arena of logistics solutions in maximizing Worldwide business opportunities.

Yes, if we play our cards well then certainly it will be beneficial for us. We now need to take cautious steps to attract business partners to our country. The Indian Government should give support the industrialists to serve western businessmen and people in better and more competitive way.