"From President Trump's perspective, the one big shared enterprise that we have is the Quad, which is an understanding where everybody pays their fair share. There are no free riders involved. So that's a good model which works," he said. The Quad alliance consists of the US, India, Australia and Japan.
'April 9 announcement of slapping a 125% tariff on Chinese goods has brought the focus back to China, making this new phase feel like a repeat of the original conflict.'
The proposed India-Israel trade pact should be beneficial to both nations and until New Delhi gets a good deal, it would not do an agreement, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said. India and Israel are negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) since May 2010. "With Israel, until we get a good deal, we will not do an FTA. It has to be reciprocally beneficial," the minister said in San Francisco on Tuesday while interacting with the Indian community.
The pact on trade in goods under the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement was signed by Indian commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma and ASEAN economic ministers after more than six years of intense negotiations.
Bilateral trade was close to $4.2 billion last year, said Canadian Minister of International Trade Peter Van Loan. "Both the Governments have set a target of increasing the mutual bilateral merchandise trade to USD 15 billion in the next five years.
Over 25 crore workers across India are set to strike against new labour codes and privatisation, potentially disrupting banking, postal, and other essential services.
A free trade agreement between Thailand and India is expected to be completed by September this year providing a big boost in trade between the two Asian countries.
I'...additional concessions, such as opening government procurement, reducing agricultural subsidies, weakening patent protections, and allowing unrestricted data flows -- demands India has resisted for decades.'
Buoyed by a 54 per cent growth in trade at $7.6 billion, India and China have decided to work out 5-year programme to enhance economic cooperation including a free-trade agreement.
India and Canada have agreed to restore High Commissioners to each other's capitals at an early date, the first in 'calibrated steps' to restore stability to the 'very important relationship', Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said.
Snapping the two months slide, the country's merchandise exports rose marginally by 0.5 per cent to $34.58 billion in September while trade deficit narrowed to $20.78 billion. According to official data released on Wednesday, imports increased by 1.6 per cent to $55.36 billion in September compared to $54.49 billion in the year-ago period. The trade deficit, or the gap between imports and exports, was $20.8 billion during the same month last year.
India expects partners to understand its policy of 'zero tolerance' against terrorism, and it will never countenance 'perpetrators of evil' being put on par with its victims, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday during extensive talks with his British counterpart David Lammy.
India's micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) - which contribute over 45 per cent to outbound shipments - are facing a major disruption following the United States (US) decision to impose 50 per cent additional tariffs on the country's exports. MSME industry bodies have raised an alarm over the deep impact, seeking immediate government intervention.
China was India's top import source with $65.89 billion, a 9.8 per cent year-on-year increase, worth of inbound shipments during the April-October period of this fiscal, according to the commerce ministry data. Exports to China, however, dipped by 9.37 per cent to $8 billion. During the period, the US emerged as the top export destination for the country with outbound shipments increasing by 6.31 per cent to $47.24 billion.
"Negotiations on the FTA will be commencing shortly. We believe that we will be able to conclude the EFTA trade agreement within one year," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath told reporters in New Delhi after meeting Swiss Federal Counsellor Doris Leuthard. EFTA states include Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. It is an inter-governmental organisation to promote free trade and economic integration between the four nations.
Businesses are testing new markets, tapping into domestic demand, and pushing the government for relief.
Sector analysts in India feel that the new convention may not lead to a significant increase in the number of Indian employees being sent to the UK.
'The steel industry has a multiplier effect on direct and indirect employment, national security on the supply chain, technology access etc.'
India will be able to bag extra orders worth $three billion for garment exports from the European Union, if the country enters into a Free Trade Agreement with the EU, apparel exports body said on Monday.
Dismissing allegations that Indian phacosrmaceutical companies copy products of Swiss firms, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said it is a long-standing myth and India respects intellectual property rights and never steals technology from others. He said that Swiss pharmaceutical companies have not shown even a single instance that Indian companies have illegally copied any of their trademarks or patents or copyrighted technology.
The growing rift between MSIL and rival automakers has complicated the government's efforts to finalise the CAFE norms.
March 31 marked 10 years since the Modi government introduced its first Foreign Trade Policy (FTP 2015-20) that lasted for 8 years before the current FTP 2023 came in. Here is a brief assessment. In 2015, the government said that it aims to increase India's exports of merchandise and services from $465.9 billion in 2013-14 to approximately $900 billion by 2019-20 and to raise India's share in world exports from 2 per cent to 3.5 per cent.
A top Republican lawmaker has welcomed India signing a trade deal with Australia, and urged the Biden administration to enter into a similar arrangement with New Delhi that can advance Washington's strong economic agenda in the strategically vital Indo-Pacific region. "I'm pleased to see #Australia & #India sign a strong trade deal," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch said in a tweet. "The US needs to do the same and advance a strong economic agenda in the #IndoPacific. "The Biden Admin's failure to lead hurts US growth and our partnership in the region," Risch said in another tweet.
Taiwan is keen to collaborate with India and help it become a leader in the semiconductor space, Jason Ho, chairman of the Taiwan Chamber of Commerce in India, said, asserting that the Taiwanese companies have the supply chain for things that the Indian market needs. Manufacturing semiconductors - used in electric and hybrid cars, drones, and communication devices - is fairly complicated, entails huge investment, and can be a cumbersome process.
On August 7, the US president announced doubling tariffs on Indian goods to 50 percent for India's purchases of Russian crude oil, but gave a 21-day window to negotiate an agreement.
India Head Coach Gautam Gambhir addressed the crow as Team India were hosted by the Indian High Commission in London on Monday
India's trade ties with Israel have only strengthened in the years after 2019. The total value of trade rose to $10.5 billion on a rolling four-quarter basis in June 2023 from $5.5 billion in the same month in 2019, shows a Business Standard analysis of data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). A rolling four-quarter number provides a comparable figure across different time periods.
'Trump does have a master plan in mind to put pressure on India with the additional tariff of 25 per cent to get Modi to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to freeze the Ukraine war.' 'It has not worked so far. By end-September only we'll know for sure the future trajectory of India's oil purchases from Russia,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
After FTA, duties were either cut or eliminated on 90 per cent of goods traded between the coutries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated US President Donald Trump on the success of the first phase of a US-brokered peace plan for Gaza and reviewed trade negotiations during a phone conversation.
As India goes into firming up trade deals with developed nations like Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the regional bloc, and the European Union (EU), it will have to be well prepared to negotiate on new-generation issues, such as data protection regulation, e-commerce, and environment. India is yet to negotiate pacts with its trading partners on these evolving issues since discussions between them have until now been largely focused on tariff and non-tariff barriers and the rules of origin. "We can no longer look at trade just as trade. We have to look at it in totality of global and regional conditions.
Since October, FPIs have offloaded Indian equities worth Rs 2.1 trillion.
Why should India buy olives from Europe when it could do so from the world's largest producers?
The rupee has held its ground against the US dollar in the 2025 calendar year so far, but depreciated significantly against the euro and pound. It fell by 6.83 per cent, and 5.44 per cent against the euro and pound respectively, as the two currencies strengthened significantly against the greenback during the period.
The USA's steep 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods entering America will severely impact exports and job creation in labour-intensive export sectors such as shrimp, apparel, leather and gems and jewellery. Exporters said that the imposition of a 25 per cent penalty on India over and above the 25 per cent tariffs move will disrupt the flow of Indian goods to its largest export market.
As a prelude to the proposed Free Trade Agreement, India and Bangladesh have agreed on a revised draft of bilateral trade agreement signed in 1980.
India and Australia would now implement the free trade agreement on a mutually agreed date as the Australian Parliament on Tuesday approved the pact between the two countries. "BREAKING: Our Free Trade Agreement with India has passed through parliament," Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a tweet. The India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (AI-ECTA) needed ratification by the Australian parliament before its implementation.
Talks for an India-European Union free trade agreement started in 2007 and the eighth round of negotiations was completed in New Delhi last month.
The hope that the ongoing 13th round of negotiations towards an India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) could conclude with a deal for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to sign off in time for the India versus England World Cup cricket clash in Lucknow on October 29 seem to be fading, according to a UK media report on Wednesday. The Financial Times quoted officials briefed on the negotiations to say that a lack of movement towards opening up of the Indian market to British professional services in the field of law and accountancy is among the factors for the slowdown. So much so that cricket fan Sunak's proposed return visit to India after an inaugural visit as UK Prime Minister to New Delhi for the G20 Summit last month is looking "very, very unlikely to happen".
