India will be utilising all bilateral and multilateral platforms to raise the issue of carbon tax and other non-tariff barriers (NTB) at the trade and investment ministers’ meeting of the G20 to seek greater mutual cooperation for increasing transparency in the use of such barriers, commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal said on Friday.
As G20 representatives gather in Jaipur for the trade and investment ministerial meeting on August 24-25, India would also be holding bilateral meetings with leaders and trade ministers of the countries with which free trade agreements are being negotiated.
“Ministers will be coming from the US, UK, Canada and other countries. This G20 ministerial meeting will be useful for us to conduct some of the important bilaterals with respect to our FTAs. The UK is coming with its team. We will be having high-level meetings with the UK on FTA,” the secretary said.
With Canada and the European Union, bilaterals would be focused on the progress achieved so far in negotiations. As the FTA with the UK is in its final stages, the bilateral meeting on the sidelines of G-20 will be immediately followed by other high-level visits where both the counties are expected to wrap up negotiations on remaining issues.
So far, negotiators from India and the UK have completed discussions on 19 chapters or policy areas out of 26 that would be part of the trade deal.
According to industry sources, the UK has agreed to big tariff cuts in areas of interest to India like textile, leather and gems & jewellery, while an agreement on tariffs imposed by India on automobiles and wines and spirits is within reach.
US trade representative Katherine Tai will be in Jaipur, and if a bilateral meeting takes place, stock-taking of the progress made since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US would be done. During the PM’s visit, India and the US agreed to end all trade disputes at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and work on other areas to enhance trade ties.
At the G20 trade ministers’ meeting, the top priority areas are: lowering barriers to services trade, increasing transparency in use of non-trade barriers, providing aid to least developed countries for capacity building to ensure their participation in world trade, building resilient and sustainable value chains and WTO reform. Participation of micro, small and medium enterprises in the trade and logistics will also be discussed.
Barthwal said India is particularly interested in non-tariff barriers, “Definitely, we are discussing those NTBs and we are also discussing how to find a good solution, how to find a platform where we coordinate on these issues and understand these issues.”
He said NTBs and the issues like carbon tax by the EU which other countries are also considering would be discussed multilaterally as well as bilaterally. “All platforms will be used (on NTBs).”
India has raised the carbon tax issue at the WTO and the Trade and Technology Council with the EU.
G-20 countries account for 85% of the global economy and 98% of the trade, and in the current scenario of slowdown in economies and falling commodity prices, it assumes greater importance, Barthwal said. “Focus (at Jaipur meeting) would be on the G20 ministerial declaration and we are hopeful that all the Indian priorities will be converted into definite outcomes.”
The G20 members include Canada, France, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UK, US and EU. Representatives from six invitee countries – Bangladesh, Egypt, the Netherlands, Oman, Singapore and the UAE – will also participate.
After the ministerial meeting, the Business 20 (B20) meeting will be held in New Delhi from August 25 to 27. B20 includes business heads of the member countries, and is headed by Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran.