India, EU trade pact talks early next year

NEW DELHI: Chief negotiators of India and the EU will meet early next year to take the talks further on trade and investment pact BTIA, the Lok Sabha was informed today.

So far 15 rounds of negotiations have been held between India and the European Union on Bilateral Broad Based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA).

"The chief negotiators are to meet in the beginning of the next year to take the negotiations further," Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply in the Lower House.

As is consistent with previous and established practice in ongoing negotiations, she said disclosure before finalisation of the Agreement "may adversely" affect India's position in the negotiations.

Earlier, a chief negotiator level meeting, scheduled for August 28 here, was deferred by the government "in view of action by EU suspending" the market authorisation of around 700 pharma products clinically tested by GVK Biosciences, Hyderabad.

"The action was based on an ongoing legal scrutiny into documentation of GVK Biosciences," Sitharaman said.

To another question, she said at present, the cement industry is not operating at optimum capacity due to sluggish demand.

"As against the present installed capacity of 360 million tonnes per annum, the total production during 2014-15 was only 270.93 MT per annum," Sitharaman said.