Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said the India-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations are going on as we speak. She was delivering an address at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) in Washington, a top American think-tank.
The minister confirmed the news at a time when a recent report by a London-based newspaper had suggested that the FTA talks between the two countries are suspended over the UK’s failure to denounce vandalism by Khalistani supporters outside the Indian High Commission in London last month.
Sitharaman said, “Free Trade Agreements are being signed in a much faster way nowadays. We’ve just concluded one with Australia. Earlier we concluded with UAE, Mauritius and with ASEAN. We have extended quota-free and tariff-free regime to Least Developed Countries.”
She said, “India has shown its initiative and is working out well in pursuing with countries and agreeing to have FTAs with them. We’ve had agreements with ASEAN, free trade agreements both in goods and services with ASEAN, we have had with Korea, with Japan.”
The India-UK Free Trade Agreement talks were launched on June 17, 2022.
“So free trade agreements have bilaterally or with multilateral groups been the route which India has had till before 2014 and now between 2019 and today, we’ve had at least three major agreements signed. So, we shall proceed in that route, with the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Canada. All three are happening now as we speak, the negotiations are going on,” the finance minister said.
India wants the World Trade Organization to be more progressive and listening to other countries, Sitharaman has said while asserting that the WTO needs to give more space to the countries which have something different to say and not just hear.
“I would like the WTO to be a lot more progressive, a lot more listening to all countries, to be fair to all members,” she said, while adding, “I, fortunately, unfortunately spent some time with the WTO in my capacity as a commerce minister of India between 2014 and 2017. It has to give more space to hear voices of countries which have something different to say and not just hear, but also somewhat heed because today’s message for the WTO should be to have greater openness.”
During the conversation, Sitharaman also talked about India’s growing influence in the global supply chain.
“Given the shocks suffered from supply chain disruptions, multinational corporations have become prudent and are diversifying. India is poised for a more important role in the global value chains,” Sitharaman said, according to her official Twitter account.
She further said, “Foreign investments have kept coming to India. I would tell the prospective investors to come and look at what’s happening in India rather than listening to perceptions being built by people who’ve not visited the ground but writing reports. India’s growth is sustainable as it attempts to grow its manufacturing sector & not import products that we manufacture. Catering to the domestic markets became attractive due to the Phased Manufacturing Programme (PMP).”
“India needs to have resilient value chains come to India for which we came up with PLI schemes so that those supply chains can thrive in domestic as well as international markets. We’ve incentivised production so that goods produced in India are consumed in India as well as exported to other countries,” Finance Minister said, adding that PLI Scheme has helped increase India’s mobile manufacturing capacity, which was almost nil in 2014 and today, we are the second largest manufacturer of smartphones. PLI schemes for 13 sunrise sectors are bringing global value chains into India.
