India, EU trade pact next spring

NEW DELHI: India and the European Union will sign their much-delayed free-trade pact on goods, services and investment by early next year, with the respective chief negotiators meeting every month to fast-track the process.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced their intention to wrap up the talks next year, during the ongoing India-EU Summit in Brussels on Friday. "Let us sign the deal in 2011," Barroso said after the meeting. Ministers from both sides will meet in March to finalise the agreement which would be signed by spring, according to a joint report tabled at the summit.

The 27-member grouping is India's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade touching $75 billion in 2009-10. The pact is expected to increase two-way trade by 30%. India has so far signed bilateral free-trade agreements with Singapore, South Korea, the 10-member Asean and Sri Lanka. Two more with Japan and Malaysia have almost been finalised.

A meeting of the Indian commerce secretary and the EC director general of trade will take place in early 2011.

The Indo-EU agreement proposes to open up markets in both agriculture and industrial goods and liberalise rules for services and investment. There are also provisions for negotiating on procurement rules, competition policy, intellectual property and transparency.

While issues such as rules of origin, quality standards and trade facilitation have been sorted out, others, including intellectual property, services and sensitivities in goods and agriculture, still remain unresolved.

P K Chaudhury, India's chief negotiator and commerce additional secretary, told the media in New Delhi that "the issues remaining on the table are complex but if we are able to resolve them to the mutual satisfaction of the two sides, it will enrich the trade deal."