ISDS Case Map
India
New Delhi/India today extended a $ 500 million line of credit to the Government of Myanmar as the two countries signed 12 agreements for cooperation in various areas and agreed on a vision for the future in the pursuit of the common good - bilaterally, regionally and globally.
India has traditionally looked West for trade, investment, and economic cooperation. But since the late 1990s, trade policy rightly focused on the Look East policy, and recognized that India needs to become integrated into the cross-border production and trade networks in Asia. The immediate attention was towards South Asian integration. But since the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the South Asian Free Trade Area remained just on paper on account of the yet unresolved differences between India and Pakistan, the government simultaneously initiated trade agreements with Southeast Asia.
In a bid to fast track the much-delayed negotiations for the proposed free trade agreement between India and European Union, commerce minister Anand Sharma will hold comprehensive discussions with EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht next month in Brussels.
Domestic manufacturers are having nightmares as the tariffs of imported finished goods from South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) member countries would come down to five percent from the next fiscal year, while the duties on raw materials used to produce same products remain much higher, an official said on Saturday.
As the British telecommunications company Vodafone Group and India’s finance ministry edge ever closer to a full-blown confrontation over taxes related to Vodafone’s $11.1 billion acquisition in India, a key issue may be the India-Netherlands Bilateral Investment Treaty, signed between the two governments in 1995.
Automobile industry body SIAM today cautioned that the sector will miss targets of the Automotive Mission Plan 2006-16 if it is included in the proposed free-trade agreement with the European Union for allowing imports of vehicles at lower duties.
Though it is too early to arrive at definite conclusions, the trend signals Tokyo successfully using tariff cuts to penetrate deeper into the Indian market for goods.
India and Australia will hold the third round of negotiations for the conclusion of a comprehensive free trade agreement in Sydney later this month.
Indian market has huge potential for Pakistani items, but experts are discussing India’s import impact on domestic economy, ignoring the potential of services sector exports to that country, according to speakers of a seminar on Thursday.
As India grapples with the Vodafone and 2G fallout, the Bilateral Investment Treaties it signed a few years ago are coming back to haunt it.
