India pushes to upgrade ASEAN FTA, advances talks on CECA with Australia

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday said that it is working with its ASEAN partners to review and upgrade the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA), while negotiations are also progressing on a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) with India.

Speaking at a special briefing on the Prime Minister's visit to Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, the Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Rudrendra Tandon, said that the AITIGA review is a multilateral process involving all ASEAN member states.

"It's a multilateral agreement, so it requires all ASEAN countries together. We of course discussed with all our ASEAN partners about the importance of upgrading, reviewing the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement, which is a very old agreement and probably does not reflect the structures of the economies either in India or in ASEAN." Tandon said.


He said that the original agreement provides for different levels of tariff concessions by participating countries and that the ongoing review aims to further liberalise trade.

He said, "The review process will try to bring about greater liberalisation on both sides. But mind you, this is a multilateral agreement. So it will be everyone together; we do have continuous conversations with all the significant economies in the ASEAN region, because naturally the negotiations with them will be critical in getting the review process through. But simultaneously, we are also pursuing an upgradation of ties bilaterally, which is, again, a continuous process. So beyond that, one can't say very much, especially when discussing an agreement that requires negotiating with all ten people at the same time."

Responding to a question on trade talks with Australia, Joint Secretary (Oceania) Vishwesh Negi said that India and Australia are working towards concluding a balanced CECA.

He said, "As you all are aware, in 2022, India and Australia had signed the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement. Now the effort on the two sides is to finalise a balanced, comprehensive uh economic cooperation agreement. This is being finalised and negotiated by the Ministry of Commerce."

He added, "We are expecting a balanced document to be adopted on both sides, and our teams are closely engaged. We are working with the Ministry of Commerce on that. So the further rounds of negotiations between our chief negotiators are happening soon."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as part of his upcoming three-nation visit, will travel to Indonesia on July 8-9, Australia on July 10 and New Zealand on July 11.

The visit to Indonesia will see a focus on reviewing the bilateral partnership, while in Australia, PM Modi will participate in the third India-Australia Annual Summit process. Covering New Zealand in the last leg of his visit, PM Modi would become the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the country in forty years.