ISDS Case Map
India
In what is seen as a dramatic move, India on Friday slashed its controversial exclusion list of products for tariff reduction from 850 to 560 to kick-start the recently-suspended negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Asean.
India is citing the fear of political fallout and its suicide epidemic among farmers as obstacles to hammering out a free-trade deal with Southeast Asia, officials said yesterday.
Asean will set a time frame for India to decide whether it wants to continue with negotiations on the Asean-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA), a Philippine economic official said Wednesday.
During the triangular IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) political summit on September 13 in Brazil, Mercosur is likely to propose South African Customs Union (SACU) and India the creation of a working group to explore the modalities of a trilateral free trade agreement (T-FTA) among them.
It seems unlikely that India and Thailand would graduate to a full-fledged free trade agreement (FTA) this year despite the successful implementation of the early harvest programme. The political turmoil in Thailand leading to elections in mid-October coupled with the uncertainty in FTA talks between India and Asean has pushed the India-Thai FTA talks to the backburner.
Defending himself and his government against criticisms of free trade area (FTA) agreements Thailand negotiated with foreign countries, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Saturday said that the FTAs had helped boost trade and increase the country's exports.
Thailand is suffering a nearly Bt9 billion (about US$239.5 million) trade deficit chalked up between October last year and May this year as a result of the free trade agreements (FTAs) it has entered with China, India, Australia and New Zealand.
A free trade agreement (FTA) between Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) and China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and India (East Asia FTA) is possible in the next 10 years, Asean secretary-general, Ong Keng Yong, said Tuesday.
Security concerns over investments from China is impacting the proposed Bilateral Investment Promotion Agreement with Beijing. North Block's proposal to amend the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) is stuck, delaying the signing of the agreement.
Last week, Sanjaya Baru, the media advisor to the prime minister, and an economist in a previous avatar, published a book called The Strategic Consequences of India's Economic Performance. Amongst other things in it, he argues for more regional trading agreements.
