India, Asean to give another shot at free trade pact
New Delhi: Ahead of this week’s Asean summit in the Philippines, India on Sunday said its “sensitivities” should be addressed in the ongoing negotiations with the 10-member trading bloc for a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement for freer trade in goods and services. “India has certain sensitivities which must be reflected in the Asean pact,” commerce minister Kamal Nath said. India and Asean have been unable to agree on a negative list of products, where New Delhi will not be bound to cut tariffs due the adverse impact it could have on its farmers and industry, which is proving to be a stumbling block. India has offered to prune this list to 490 from 563 as the latest offering to the South-East Asian trading bloc. But even the revised list is short of Asean’s demand which wanted the negative list pruned to 387 products. Nath will go to Philippines before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reaches there for the summit to make efforts to forge a consensus . India had offered to allow duty free import of 4,021 items of which tariffs would be removed for 3,073 items by 2011 and for the rest by 2015. The 850-odd items taken away from this list have been put on a sensitive list, where duties are to be cut to 7.5%. Asean wants zero duty export for another 350 items to India. Certain Asean members like Vietnam and Indonesia also want more market access for farm goods like palm oil and pepper. India has offered to keep the import duty on these items unchanged during the first five years of the pact and then reduce tariffs gradually. Asean wanted tariff cuts to start immediately and wants duties be brought below the 50-60% level.
New Delhi: Ahead of this week’s Asean summit in the Philippines, India on Sunday said its “sensitivities” should be addressed in the ongoing negotiations with the 10-member trading bloc for a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement for freer trade in goods and services. “India has certain sensitivities which must be reflected in the Asean pact,” commerce minister Kamal Nath said. India and Asean have been unable to agree on a negative list of products, where New Delhi will not be bound to cut tariffs due the adverse impact it could have on its farmers and industry, which is proving to be a stumbling block. India has offered to prune this list to 490 from 563 as the latest offering to the South-East Asian trading bloc. But even the revised list is short of Asean’s demand which wanted the negative list pruned to 387 products. Nath will go to Philippines before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reaches there for the summit to make efforts to forge a consensus . India had offered to allow duty free import of 4,021 items of which tariffs would be removed for 3,073 items by 2011 and for the rest by 2015. The 850-odd items taken away from this list have been put on a sensitive list, where duties are to be cut to 7.5%. Asean wants zero duty export for another 350 items to India. Certain Asean members like Vietnam and Indonesia also want more market access for farm goods like palm oil and pepper. India has offered to keep the import duty on these items unchanged during the first five years of the pact and then reduce tariffs gradually. Asean wanted tariff cuts to start immediately and wants duties be brought below the 50-60% level.
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