Commerce ministry charts strategic course for future FTAs

NEW DELHI: The commerce ministry held deliberations with experts, former officers and senior officials from different departments on framing a standard operating procedure for free trade pacts and other related issues under these agreements, an official release said on Tuesday.

The commerce ministry in the release stated that the 'Chintan Shivir' was organised on May 16-17 at Neemrana, Rajasthan.

''The Shivir facilitated discussions on various issues related to negotiations of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) by India, its position and strategy that should be adopted for such negotiations,'' the ministry said.

The participants also deliberated on standard operating procedures (SoP) for FTA negotiations, capacity building and resource management for trade negotiations as well as certain contemporary issues under modern FTAs such as labour, environment, and gender.

It said commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal spearheaded the deliberations which sought to chart a strategic course for India's future engagement in FTA negotiations.

Economic assessment and modelling of FTAs, addressing new disciplines into FTAs such as labour, environment, gender, and indigenous people; and services and digital trade in FTAs were among the main themes for discussions, it said.

SoP for FTA negotiations including stakeholder consultations; capacity building and FTA resource management; and leveraging trade agreements to address emerging areas such as CBAM (carbon border adjustment mechanism), supply chain disruptions, critical minerals, and artificial intelligence were also discussed.

In a different session, the ministry said, it also emerged during discussions that India should negotiate a dedicated chapter on critical minerals or critical minerals-based agreements, especially with such mineral-rich countries to protect India from abrupt disruption in the supply chain.