India and ASEAN to Revise 13 year old Trade Agreement

On August 21, India and ASEAN, India's second largest trading partner after the European Union, agreed to review their 13-year-old trade agreement. The move comes after repeated attempts from New Delhi, which believes the agreement does not benefit Indian exporters, with commerce minister Piyush Goyal describing it as "most ill-conceived."

India's concerns stem from the fact that some of its exports, such as steel products, are not fully benefiting from the treaty. Furthermore, there have been reports of Chinese products, such as set-top boxes, making their way into India via an Asean country that is taking advantage of the trade treaty's concessional duty rate.

"Today, India and Asean agreed to a time-bound review of the Asean-India Trade in Goods Agreement, which is a significant development." Both parties agreed to a quarterly negotiation schedule, with the goal of completing the review by 2025... "The FTA review is expected to broaden and diversify India's exports to the Asean region, as well as address current tariff asymmetry," the commerce department said on August 21.

The agreement did not specify a date for the review, which is usually done every year or two. One of the concerns with the agreement was that, under pressure from the external affairs ministry, the Manmohan Singh government agreed to split the goods and services negotiations, resulting in India not reaping the full benefit.