A team of trade negotiators from the US will be in New Delhi next week to take forward discussions on the interim trade agreement which could come as soon as by the last week of June.
The US negotiators will be in India from June 5 or June 6, a senior official said. Through the interim trade agreement India is looking to avoid additional 26% tariffs on its exports to the US, which were announced by President Donald Trump under the reciprocal tariff plan on April 2.
“We are well on track in our Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) with the US,” commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of industry body CII.
Earlier speaking at the same event, Special Secretary in the Department of Commerce Rakesh Agrawal and chief negotiator for US trade talks said, “e are progressing well, and hopefully in these tough times also, we will be able to navigate and come out with good outcomes sooner than later.”
India is pinning a lot of hope on the BTA to give an impetus to its sagging goods exports. Recently, the finance ministry said in its monthly economic report that the trade pact with the world’s largest economy would help “flip headwinds into tailwinds.”
The US team visit comes close on the heels of the visit of Indian negotiators and commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal to the US last week. While negotiators were talking, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal met US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick twice during the course of the week to give a political direction to the negotiations.
While the talks started with the aim of concluding the first tranche of the BTA by the autumn of this year, the reciprocal tariffs and its 90-day suspension has steered the discussions on having an interim trade deal.
There is a natural synergy between India and the US and companies from both sides will be able to work together and forge natural alliances, Agrawal said.
“There are only a few areas where we actually compete. Most of the areas are where we can complement each other. If we can do a good trade deal, this can actually be a defining partnership in the trade arena, and that’s what is the intent behind approaching this bilateral trade agreement,” he said.
Speaking on the current disruption in world trade and supply chains, Agrawal said, “I think India is well poised, because, though it is a huge challenging situation, but I think for India, it’s a huge opportunity. We are a global, big market and growing one. One of the key drivers of global growth is also going to come from India. We are going to wield much more weight in the next two decades in global growth. “
“Apart from the big market India is also a decently big producer. Also, we may have 15% of our GDP only coming from manufacturing, but we do have a good enough manufacturing base which produces the Gross Value Addition of around $ 500 billion per year. It’s not small. It may not be like China or us, but it’s not small,” he said. “This is the unique proposition that India offers.”