The Commerce Department said on Friday that reviewing the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) is “one of our top priorities” to make the pact “more user-friendly, simple and trade-facilitating for businesses.”
Finance ministers of India and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are meeting in Laos to review the progress of trade deal negotiations between the two sides. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will visit the Southeast Asian nation on September 20 and 21.
According to people familiar with the matter, India is pushing for a faster completion of the trade deal review. New Delhi will press ASEAN countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam to give market access to more products to make the deal more “balanced,” said one of the people cited above.
“We met with the delegation of the ASEAN-India Business Council (AIBC) on the sidelines of the 21st ASEAN-India Economic Ministers’ Meeting. We discussed strengthening trade ties between India and ASEAN nations and exploring new avenues for growth and collaboration,” Goyal said on X.
ASEAN consists of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The India-ASEAN trade agreement came into effect in January 2010. In August 2023, both sides announced the aim of completing the review of the existing agreement on goods between the two regions by 2025.
Goyal will also attend the 12th East Asia Summit Economic Ministers’ Meeting (EAS EMM). These annual meetings of ASEAN with its dialogue partners are being hosted this year by Laos, which holds the ASEAN Chair in 2024. “The ministers will deliberate on regional and global economic developments,” the statement said.
Minister Goyal will hold a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the participating countries on the sidelines of the two institutional meetings.
ASEAN is one of India’s most important trading partners. For the last two consecutive years, ASEAN has been India’s second largest trading partner.
First published: September 20, 2024 | 17:48 IS
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