New Delhi, India: Union Commerce Minister,Piyush Goyal, on Wednesday, stated that India aims at larger ambitions, not just over a free trade deal with the United States, while focusing on greater and easy access to markets, ease of doing business and a larger footprint for trade and investment of resources between the two.
The remarks from the Union Minister came following the convention of the 13th meeting of the US-India Trade Policy Forum(TPF) with Katherine Tai, the US Trade representative in Washington.
“We are looking at so much more than free trade with the United States. Of course, we are doing free trade deals. Recently, India entered into free trade deals with Australia and UAE as well. Meanwhile, dialogue is going on with the UK with Canada, Israel with EU,” stated Goyal during a press conference in Washington.
He further added that the United States currently ain’t looking at any free trade agreements with any country, owing to their political alignments; “we are currently focused on gaining greater market access. We are also focusing on ease of doing business between the two countries.”
As per Goyal, India looks on to a much larger extent of trade and investment and business as the small military deals have lost relevance in recent times.
On the revival of GSP status, Goyal stated that GSP is not something the Indian Government has been carrying on its priority list as trade continues at full swing, adding that “I have placed on record our requested GSP should be restored.”
Notably, the GSP status of India was terminated by the then US-President Donald Trump back in March 2019.
The meeting between Piyush Goyal and Katherine Tai provided an opportunity to evaluate the work that has been done following the re-launch of TPF in November 2021, under the Forum working groups and guide on priorities to pursue as part of the TPF 2023 work program.
