The deal fell through over unresolved disagreements over contentious issues, mainly on agriculture and automotive sector tariffs.
'We may see even more restrictive policies during 2.0.'
Of Trump's reciprocal tariffs and trade deals
'We have to be prepared for the larger disruption that is likely to take place.'
With Donald Trump all set to become US president, Indian exporters may face high customs duties for goods like automobiles, textiles and pharmaceuticals if the new US administration decides to pursue the 'America First' agenda, opined trade experts. Experts also said that Trump could also tighten H-1B visa rules, impacting costs and growth for Indian IT firms. Over 80 per cent of India's IT export earnings come from the US, making it vulnerable to changes in visa policies.
A year after a Hamas attack against Israel on October 7 and the ensuing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, India's trade with most West Asian countries has largely escaped any major disruption, except with countries like Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. However, repeated flare-ups of geopolitical tensions in the region continue to drive up shipping and logistics costs.
The formalisation of Asean-India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) covering the goods sector marks an important step towards India's deepening trade links with its partners in the Asian region.
India's gain will be an additional business of $300 million to $400 million per month if 10-11% of Bangladesh's export is diverted to Indian hubs like Tiruppur.
The talks for a free trade agreement (FTA) between India and Canada may have taken a pause but will resume once the political row between the two countries is resolved as the pact has economic benefits for both the nations, trade experts and exporters said on Friday. However, they said that India may not hurry for the trade agreement as 60 per cent of New Delhi's exports are already entering Canada at zero duty. Earlier this month, India and Canada paused the negotiations for the agreement due to political reasons.
India has a huge trade surplus with US - over $20 billion a year in the past five years.
The Centre is unlikely to announce an agreement over payment mechanism with Russia until a ceasefire is declared in the Ukraine war, said people in the know. An inter-ministerial group headed by the finance ministry has been meeting regularly for over a month to analyse and discuss payment mechanisms that can work under the current circumstances and ensure the trade between India and Russia is not disrupted. The US had recently said that there would be consequences for countries actively attempting to "circumvent or backfill" American sanctions against Russia.
Some of these nations are India's biggest export market. India is also dependent on these countries to meet its energy needs.
With Kabul falling into the hands of the Taliban, bilateral trade between Afghanistan and India will get impacted significantly in these uncertain times, according to exporters. Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) director general Ajay Sahai said domestic exporters should follow caution looking into the political development in Afghanistan, particularly with regard to payments, for which adequate credit insurance may be availed by them. "The trade will be impacted. It would reduce due to the growing uncertainty in Afghanistan," he said on Monday. Former FIEO president and country's leading exporter S K Saraf too said there will be a significant fall in the bilateral trade.
Negotiations for a trade deal between India and the UK have run into fresh controversy, after the proposals under a leaked chapter of the deal on intellectual property (IP) are believed to put access to affordable, lifesaving generic medicines from India at risk. According to the draft IP chapter put out by an international trade portal bilaterals.org, the UK is seeking continuous extension of patent period and rights through small tweaks in the drug, known as evergreening. This may prevent patents from expiring, impacting cheaper drug availability and its production by Indian generic drug manufacturers.
India has reiterated that members have spent over a decade on the Doha Round and it should not be kept hanging.
Countries that have signed the RCEP agreement can start negotiations with India for joining the pact once New Delhi submits a written request stating its intention for the same, according to a declaration. On November 4 last year, India walked out of mega free trade agreement RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) as negotiations failed to address New Delhi's outstanding issues and concerns. The remaining 15 member countries have signed RCEP agreement and have stated that the pact would remain open to India.
Existing trade deals, especially the 2009 pact with the Asean bloc, have been panned by the Centre for not boosting exports but flooding the domestic market with cheap imports. Subsequently, New Delhi has called for reviewing FTAs with Japan and South Korea. Going by that, a trade deal with the US is unlikely to be beneficial, say experts.
The apparel and engineering sectors have already witnessed the trend in the past one week. If this continues, it can have an impact on the overall export demand in the coming months, considering that Europe is the largest national export market for India.
Removal of this status means India can now enhance customs duties to any level on goods coming from Pakistan.
Exports to China saw sustained double-digit growth for the fourth straight month in August, led by eightfold rise in iron and steel shipments.
The government has been gearing up to place tighter restrictions on the import of 371 items - ranging from toys and plastic goods to sports items, and furniture worth $127 billion.
Though the government has been pushing for exports of high-value manufactured goods across major markets in place of raw materials and input goods, India's top exports to China remain in the raw materials category.
Retailers claim online firms' predatory pricing strategy disrupting business
The 10th ministerial conference, will be held at Nairobi, Kenya.
Equity inflows worth $3.7 billion came from the sunny Caribbean jurisdiction in 2019-20, a 267 per cent increase from the $1 billion registered in 2018-19 making it India's 10th largest source of FDI.
The government believes that WTO's push for initiating negotiations on substantive obligations related to e-commerce will oblige India to permanently accept the current moratorium on imposing customs duties on products traded electronically.
The WTO dispute panel had its last hearing in early May.
The main issue has been that of a higher Asset Management Ratio as has been prescribed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore for qualifying full banks from India.
Agreement 'endorsed' by members and being legally vetted but will be part of the main Doha agenda only after a tenuous process.
Special 301 Report expresses concern over weak IPR laws, to conduct reviews.
'China feels India will be hard-pressed not to go after China because we are so badly dependent on them -- and that is the reality.'
India Inc had cheered Donald Trump's decision to scrap TPP, but now there is a growing sense that it won't really lead to positive growth in trade with the US. Subhayan Chakraborty reports.
With six airports handed over to the Adani group for 50 years, the government is now all set to hand over another 25 airports to private players in a bid to 'monetise' them. Official figures reveal that since 2017-18, the government has spent and will be spending Rs 14,500 crore on significantly revamping infrastructure at most of these airports before handing them over to private players. The Airports Authority of India (AAI), which operates these airports for the government, has spent billions of rupees in building new terminal buildings, runways, reinforcing taxiways, upgrading aircraft landing systems, radars and a host of other heavy duty and capital intensive infrastructure works.
The differences between the rich and developing nations have always been at the core of the World Trade Organisation, set up in 1995 to facilitate greater trade flows across the world, and it came as a major breakthrough when the US and India reached a deal over food security issues in 2014.
While an official in the Commerce Department indicated a trade war was in the offing, till now the government has been in wait-and-watch mode.
From being exorbitantly priced to facing stiff competition, Harley was always going to find it tough to crack a market like India, says Dhruv Munjal.
'Indian entrepreneurs became traders for Chinese goods rather than producers of goods.'
The agreement on services, if ratified by all member countries, could prove to be a game changer for Indian professionals in education, healthcare & IT.
Critics have even suggested that India is doing this because it is not prepared to take on the requirements of TFA, with a relatively weak trade infrastructure.
'India-China economic ties are likely to take a hit in the wake of the new situation, but that also provides India with a new opportunity to strengthen its manufacturing base,' points out Dr Rajaram Panda.
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