According to an official, the trade deal with America and the European Union (EU), a 27-nation bloc, has opened up an opportunity of $400 billion for India's agriculture sector. Currently, India's agricultural exports to the US are $2.8 billion, while imports are only $1.5 billion. Overall, India's imports of agricultural goods are worth $35 billion, while exports are worth $51-52 billion, and these figures are increasing. The official said that through these trade deals, we have opened markets worth $400 billion in the EU and America combined. We are opening a big opportunity for our agricultural sector. This area is important because opposition parties are expressing serious concern about the impact of the trade agreement with America on Indian farmers. In any free trade agreement, India has not given any duty exemption on sectors like dairy, poultry and grains.
Apart from this, the Commerce Secretary said that a team of Indian officials will go to America next week to finalize the legal draft of the interim trade agreement. This agreement is expected to be signed in March. This journey is likely to start from 23rd February. India and the US had issued a joint statement earlier this month announcing that the outline of an interim trade agreement had been prepared. He said that the outline of the agreement has been set out in the joint statement. Now the outline of the agreement will have to be converted into a legal agreement, which will be signed between both the parties. Both the parties are engaged in giving legal form to the agreement and online negotiations are going on. Aggarwal said, next week a team led by (India's) chief negotiator Darpan Jain will go to the US to legally finalize the trade agreement.
On the other hand, India and Britain are making sincere efforts towards implementing the bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) by April this year. Commerce Secretary Rajesh Aggarwal said on Monday that both sides are working towards implementing this agreement as soon as possible and efforts are on to implement it from April. India and Britain signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) on July 24, 2025. Under this, there will be zero duty on 99 percent of Indian exports to Britain, while there will be a phased reduction in duty on British products like cars and whiskey in India. However, before implementing the agreement, it is necessary to obtain the approval of the British Parliament, whereas in India such agreements get the approval of the Union Cabinet.
When asked about the possible timeline for implementation of this agreement, Aggarwal said that in some media reports there have been reports of it coming into effect in April and both sides are making efforts in that direction. But I don't know whether it will be done by this time or whether it will go beyond that. There is a genuine effort from both sides to meet the April deadline if possible. The Commerce Secretary said that talks are also going on to extend the existing Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with Mercosur, a group of Latin American countries. He said that Joint Trade Committee meetings are being held and efforts are being made to increase the scope of the agreement and convert it into a full-fledged agreement.
