NEW DELHI, April 10 : Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, announced on Friday that India is in talks with 20 additional countries to open market access and broaden trade opportunities.
He said these negotiations are aimed to build on nine Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed over the past three-and-a-half years.
These FTAs provided preferential access to 38 developed nations.
Piyush Goyal’s remarks came while addressing the business leaders in Coimbatore.
“We are in discussions with, apart from these 38 countries, at least 20 more countries to open market access in all of them. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Eurasian region, and Israel as participants in these ongoing trade talks,” he said.
Highlighting the business opportunities in Coimbatore, he said the city is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. He described Coimbatore as the power centre of South India’s entrepreneurial strength and credited the region’s MSMEs for providing essential policy guidance to the Centre.
“Industry leaders come and complain to me that we are getting zero-duty imports from countries where we don’t get access for our goods, but they are dumping goods in our country at zero-duty. But we have not done a single FTA with any of our competitors. All our FTAs are with developed countries where per capita income is high, where they are not competing with us in our industries, and where we can get market access to expand our businesses.”
“Today two-third of global trade is open for all of you to get preferential market access to expand your businesses,” Goyal said.
The minister also highlighted the integration of the national power grid as a foundational achievement for industrial growth.
“The national grid gives reliability and resilience that the data centre really requires,” he said.
Amid the ongoing crisis in West Asia, Piyush Goyal recently held a virtual interaction with the Minister of Foreign Trade of United Arab Emirates Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi to explore strengthening India-UAE trade ties.
“We discussed opportunities to further strengthen India-UAE trade ties and expand avenues for deeper bilateral cooperation. I look forward to advancing our strategic partnership to new heights,” Goyal posted on ‘X’.
Notably, UAE is the second biggest export market for India and shipments have suffered due to war-related disruptions in logistics.
(UNI)
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