Posted on 02 Jan 2008
India-Asean talks resume next Monday
India-Asean free trade talks are scheduled to resume next
week and, if all goes well, a deal will be concluded in March and signed by
June after missing earlier deadlines, according to Thai authorities.
Asean officials will meet their Indian counterparts in Bhopal, India,
from Monday to Wednesday, with the focus on lists of highly sensitive products,
according to Chana Kanaratanadilok, deputy director-general of the Trade
Negotiations Department.
Asean asked India
to cut import tariffs for the highly sensitive list to 30-40% from 70-80%, but India bargained
for 50-60% to protect its industries.
Negotiations between Asean and India started four years ago and a
free trade pact was supposed to have been signed in January 2007. But
negotiations stalled over India's
refusal to budge on tariffs on five key items: petroleum, palm oil, pepper, tea
and coffee.
Last year, India
offered to cut tariffs on crude palm oil to 50% from 80% and for refined palm
oil to 60% from 90% by 2018. But Malaysia
and Indonesia, which supply
70% of India's
edible oil, want a further reduction to 30% for crude palm oil and 40% for the
refined product.
Vietnam
and Thailand
are also seeking more tariff concessions for black pepper, tea, coffee and petroleum
products. As well, Brunei
wants India
to cut duties on petroleum, its main export item.
Trade between India and Asean was worth nearly
US$20 billion last year and is projected to reach $30 billion by 2010 under the
proposed pact.
India has
also sought bilateral deals with some Asean states, including Thailand, Indonesia
and Malaysia, but there has
been little headway except for the "early harvest" tariff cuts on 82
items with Thailand,
which started in 2003.
The early harvest pact helped expand trade between the two
countries by more than 125% since 2003, to an estimated $4 billion in 2007.
In the first 10 months of 2007, Thailand's
exports to India
were worth US$2.24 billion, up 54.5% year-on-year, and imports totalled $1.753
billion, resulting in a trade surplus of $485 million.
The main Thai export goods are steel, television sets,
automobiles, machinery, chemical products and textiles while imports are mainly
jewellery and precious stones, silver, gold, metals, chemicals, fresh and
frozen aquaculture products, and medical tools.
According to Mr Chana, Thailand
is hoping to begin renegotiating the terms of the proposed FTA with India
later this month.
