India trying to finalize trade deal with US: Chief negotiator

New Delhi: India is trying to negotiate and finalize a trade agreement with the US, Special Secretary in the Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal said on Thursday.

Agrawal is also the chief negotiator of the proposed India-US bilateral trade agreement.

The aim is to conclude the first phase of this pact by fall (September-October) of this year. Before that, the two countries are looking to finalise an interim trade agreement.

Agrawal said India has so far implemented more than 14 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with 26 countries.

“Now we are integrating with major markets also… we just concluded an agreement with the UK, we are in an advanced stage of negotiations with the European Union, we are trying to negotiate and finalize a deal with the USA,” he said here at an event on export logistics.

India, he said, is also negotiating trade pacts with Latin American countries including Chile and Peru.

“We have done (trade pact) with Australia and UAE. We are in negotiations with New Zealand. So, the idea now is that we are also integrating in a big way with the major trading partners across the world and major economies…This will create huge opportunities for India also to become part of the global value chains,” he added.

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“Our tariffs will be bilaterally cut… People will be able to make long-term investment decisions based on this predictability of tariff and regulatory landscape…In this logistics will also be a major determinant,” he said.

Agrawal also said that the government is working to reduce logistics costs for industry in India.

India’s exports and imports have crossed USD 1150 billion, so “logistics is important,” he said, adding logistics will play a key role in increasing India’s share in world trade to 10 per cent in the coming years.

At present, the share is about 2 per cent.

Further, he said reduction in tariffs due to free trade agreements, harmonisation of regulations and efficient logistics ecosystem has promoted strengthening of global value chains (GVCs) in the last 2-3 decades.

At present, 70 per cent of global trade is driven by GVCs.

“We have integrated with GVcs, but our participation in the global value chains still remains much lower than the major economies,” Agrawal said.

He added that as the nature of goods is changing with India’s developmental journey, the importance of a strong logistics ecosystem will increase.

“One of the key driving factors today when we do any FTA with any country…. a key ask is a clear set of commitments around customs and trade facilitation and it is nothing but a seamless logistics ecosystem,” he said.

On the shipping sector, the special secretary said that at present shipping lines are controlled by foreign players.

“We do not have much control over shipping and air cargo spaces… that leads to around USD 50 billion of trade deficit that we do have in the services sector just because of maritime,” he said, adding “it is unsustainable and it also makes you vulnerable”.

Citing Covid times, he said as shipping cost went up multiple times it affected India’s exports.

Whenever there is an international crisis or Red sea crisis, the first thing that suffers is that logistics cost goes up as it goes up for exporters.

“Whenever world logistics have constraints, the country that has better control over logistics tends to gain more than the countries which have not much control over logistics.

“We need to focus on how we have a minimum degree of control on the global logistics ecosystem which is also necessary to support our international trade,” he added.

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