India-EU FTA ‘most difficult, complex’ due to non-trade issues: External Affairs Minister Jaishankar

Terming the India-EU foreign trade agreement (FTA) as the “toughest FTA”, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar on Monday said it is the toughest as it involves many non-trade issues. FTA.

External Affairs Minister Jaishankar was speaking to the media at a seminar on the Indian Capital Market ‘Roadmap for a Developed India’ at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in Mumbai. He emphasized that this FTA is an important trade priority.

“The FTA with the EU is the most difficult FTA, the most complex FTA because there are a lot of non-trade issues involved in that FTA. So we are confident that we will definitely try to take it forward from our side,” the External Affairs Minister said.

“But generally, I will be honest, because, again, what happened was that we lost a lot of time in the middle because of the change in positions. I mean, what’s done is done. So we’re certainly very serious about moving this forward,” he said.

Jaishankar assured that if he goes into the next term, this FTA will be one of the important trade priorities.

“My expectation is in the next term, if everything goes well with us, this will definitely be one of our important business priorities,” he said.

Jaishankar also praised Union Commerce and Trade Minister Piyush Goyal, who is contesting the Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket from Mumbai North constituency in Maharashtra.

He said, “I must say, since we are talking about trade, if there is one person who has brought a huge change in terms of commerce and trade, it is my colleague, the Commerce and Industry Minister, who is from Mumbai. Are candidates from.” ,

He added, “I think he has a personal role to play in driving forward the progress we’ve made with the Australia agreement, the UAE agreement, the EFTA agreement, the UK, the EU and the Gulf.”

Last week, Jaishankar along with his wife Kyoko Jaishankar attended Europe Day celebrations in the national capital and said relations between India and the EU are important not only for both sides but also for the world.

Describing relations between India and the EU as “consequential for the world as well”, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar said the EU is not only “our largest economic partner” but the ties are “very deep, spanning multiple sectors”. .

Notably, the EU is India’s third largest trading partner, accounting for 88 billion euros worth of goods trade in 2021 or 10.8 percent of total Indian trade.

Furthermore, India is the EU’s 10th largest trading partner, accounting for 2.1 per cent of the EU’s total goods trade.