Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday (local time) while speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) on Free Trade Agreements in Washington said that FTAs are being signed in a much “faster” way nowadays and also informed that the India-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations are “going on as we speak.” This confirmation comes at a time when a recent report 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.
“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,” the Finance Minister said.
Speaking on India’s wish to pursue trade with multilateral groups, she said, “I think India has shown very clearly its initiative is working out well in pursuing with countries and agreeing to have FTA 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. 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. So we shall go in those preferential routes.”(ANI)
