'India will stand at strong comparative advantage, protect farmers in past with US': Piyush Goyal

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has asserted that the proposed India-US trade agreement will protect the sensitive interests of Indian farmers and other stakeholders, adding that its terms would put India at a strong competitive advantage once made public.Speaking at the ISID-IDRA Fourth National Conference, Goyal said Indians would welcome the agreement when its details were released.“US free trade deal, once details are out, the people of India will celebrate that not a single sensitive interest of our farmers or any stakeholder has been compromised. On the contrary, India will stand at a very strong comparative advantage,” he said.Goyal also defended India’s record on trade agreements, saying none of the free trade agreements (FTAs) signed so far had faced substantive criticism or had any identified flaws.The remarks come as negotiations on the India-US bilateral trade agreement continue. On October 15, Goyal said the first tranche of the proposed deal had been finalised and was undergoing legal drafting. He had expressed hope that it would be concluded soon and operationalised once India secured a competitive advantage over peer economies.Explaining the broader rationale behind India’s trade agreements, Goyal said developed countries had traditionally maintained high tariffs on labour-intensive products, creating barriers for Indian exporters. He said India had secured preferential access to markets across 38 developed and relatively prosperous countries through nine trade and bilateral agreements.“Every one of the agreement, the nine free trade deals and bilateral trade deals that we have entered into, cover 38 developed, relatively much more prosperous countries than us, and therefore they are not in competition with us...we complement each other,” he said.Goyal said the agreements had opened up preferential market access to economies with a combined gross domestic product of $60 trillion, compared with $10 trillion covered by agreements signed before 2014.“We have unlocked market opportunity at preferential rates in economies aggregating USD 60 trillion; out of these nine agreements...all the agreements prior to 2014 only covered USD 10 trillion because they were largely with countries who are in competition with us,” he added.Why India stayed out of RCEPGoyal also referred to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a trade bloc comprising 15 countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the 10 ASEAN member states.He said India was not part of the bloc when it was launched, despite being in negotiations with some of its members.“India was not in the picture at all when RCEP was launched,” he said.Goyal said India had been at an advanced stage of negotiations with Australia and could have concluded an agreement with it, while trade with New Zealand was limited at the time.“We were at an active stage of negotiation with Australia and could have finished it easily. It was not a difficult agreement. We had hardly any business at that time with New Zealand. Our total bilateral trade, bilateral, was USD 350 million with New Zealand. Only China was left,” he said.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.