India-Asean FTA review talks: Goyal addresses local industry's concerns

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal on Friday co-chaired the 21st ASEAN-India Economic Ministers (AEM-India) meeting in Laos.Addressing the meet, Gayal called for addressing the concerns of its domestic industries affected by the existing free trade agreement (FTA) with the 10-nation bloc ASEAN as the two regions negotiate a review of the pact.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has also emphasized the need to rectify the inequitable tariff liberalization under the agreement.
Goyal stressed the need for addressing injury to industries from the existing FTA and the inequitable tariff liberalisation during the review. He also cited India's ongoing efforts of integrating with other economies through FTAs and highlighted the urgency in upgrading AITIGA which otherwise may lead to diversion of bilateral trade to other regions, the commerce ministry said in a statement.It said that the ministers reiterated the commitment to ensure that the outcome of the review should be mutually beneficial and commercially meaningful and will make the AITIGA more effective, user-friendly, simple, and trade facilitative for businesses.Goyal reiterated India's request for setting up of Joint Committees under the two separate agreements on services and investment, signed in 2014, to review the implementation of these pacts.
from all the 10 Asean countries - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam participated in the meeting.