Good progress on EU FTA discussions, less on the Revue des Pacts de l’Asean: government representatives

The next few months will see a burst of activities, with various teams of Indian negotiators actively seeking to sign new trade agreements with countries and regions such as the American and European Union (EU) and modify the existing agreement with the Association of South-East Asia (ASEAN), according to government officials.

During a press briefing Tuesday, July 15, 2025), senior officials from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that India saw “good progress” in its negotiations with the EU and less satisfactory progress on the examination of the free trade agreement with the Anase. They also said that the deadline for falling a bilateral investment treaty with the United States was still in place.

“Regarding the EU, we have just finished the 12th round last week which was Friday,” said Satya Srinivas, special secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. “We have exchanged our market access offers on services and non-service.”

Srinivas said that the negotiators on both sides could conclude a “couple of chapters” of the agreement and that they had long discussions on other chapters where there was a divergence.

“We had a kind of understanding that emerged on some of these divergent problems,” he added. “Overall, it was a very productive round. I think we have covered a large number of areas and it will be the Tour of the EU to come to India for the next round in the first week of September.”

With regard to the India-US Trade Agreement, officials of the Ministry of Commerce have confirmed that an India team was currently in Washington to negotiate the agreement, its third visit of this type in recent months. They reiterated the deadline for falling for the conclusion of a bilateral trade agreement (BTA).

The Hindus learned that the Indian team has taken sectoral specialists this time to solve tiny problems.

According to sources, the reciprocal pricing letters from US President Donald Trump in last week had no effect so far.

“If you look at the prices today, there are only pricing announcements,” said a conscious source of the negotiations told Hindus. “They did not enter into force. With the exception of the reference rate of 10%, which applies to all countries, no other reciprocal rate is there for any other country, with the exception of China. China has not obtained a 20% fentanyl rate in addition to this basic rate of 10%. ”

Apart from that, the United States has imposed sectoral prices on iron, steel, car and car components, which vary from 25 to 50%.

“US trade data shows that the fall in imports that the country has been faced largely in these sectors and imports from China,” said the source. “American imports from all other countries remain the same or growing.”

The special secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Rajesh Agrawal said that teams from India and Anase have so far organized nine series of meetings.

“Progress so far has been checked and we would have liked much more progress,” said Agrawal. “But the right part is that we are going on many aspects, especially on customs and the facilitation of exchanges. We are going to technical cooperation, and there are discussions on market access. ”

He added that the following two laps should be in New Delhi in August and Malaysia in October, respectively.

“We hope that in these two laps, we should be able to see good progress and try to achieve a kind of conclusion when the Asean-India summit takes place at the end of October,” he said. “The effort is in this direction.”