Misuse of FTA provisions alleged in certain cases: Government

NEW DELHI: Misuse of free trade agreement ( FTA) has been "alleged" in imports of gold jewellery from Thailand and apples from Afghanistan among other items, Parliament was informed today.

"Misuse of FTA provisions has been alleged in certain cases. These include issues in imports of flat panel television and gold jewellery from Thailand; import of cold rolled stainless steel flat products from ASEAN region; apples from Afghanistan; marble from Sri Lanka and betelnuts under SAFTA/India-Sri Lanka FTA," Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

She said that so far India has implemented 11 free trade agreements with regions include ASEAN, Singapore, Japan and South Korea and as many as 19 FTAs are under negotiations.

Replying to a separate question, she said project monitoring group in Cabinet Secretariat has set up an online digital platform - e-Nivesh - through which it proses to monitor 88 different types of clearances and approvals granted by various central government ministries.

Out of 88, 83 clearances have been digitised and 4 in respect of Defence Ministry and Home Affairs Ministry are not proposed to be digitized due to security reasons.

"Digitisation of the remaining one clearance will be carried out in the next financial year," she said.