India, ASEAN review progresss on Services & Investment Agreement

Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma with the Trade/Commerce Ministers and Officials from the ASEAN Member States at the 8th AEM-India Consultations, in Da Nang, Vietnam on August 27, 2010.

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma today held talks with Trade and Commerce Ministers of the ten ASEAN member-states at Da Nang in Vietnam to review, among other matters, progress in the negotiations on the proposed India-ASEAN Services & Investment Agreement.

The talks were part of the Eighth ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM)-India Consultations Meeting.

An official press release said the Ministers directed their officials that the talks on the agreement needed to be accelerated.

Mr Sharma said both sides should finalise the services text and concurrently complete negotiations on the schedules of commitments on the basis of the mandate of the Leaders given in Framework Agreement of 2003 for substantial sectoral coverage and GATS-plus agreement. He hoped that ambitious and commercially meaningful offers would be exchanged between the parties.

The Ministers also called for intensification of negotiation on the core issues related to investment. They underscored the importance of trade in services and investment negotiations to complement the trade in goods agreement, in order to further enhance the economic integration of ASEAN and India.

In this respect, the Ministers tasked the negotiators to step up their engagement with a view to completing negotiations by March 2011. The Ministers emphasised that the challenges encountered in the services and investment negotiations could be overcome through greater understanding and flexibility among the parties to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion.

The Ministers also exchanged views on the global economic environment, noting with satisfaction that emerging economies in Asia were leading the recovery in the global economy.

India’s economy is poised to expand by 9.4% in 2010, while ASEAN’s real GDP is expected to be over 5%, much higher than the 1.5% recorded in 2009.

In 2009, ASEAN’s trade with India remained high at $41.2 billion and India was ASEAN’s seventh largest trading partner.

The Ministers expressed confidence in the strengthening economic ties between the two sides, further boosted by the implementation of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement in 2010. The Ministers encouraged the full implementation of the agreement by all countries within 2010 so that the private sector could reap benefits offered by it.

In line with the transparency requirements of the WTO, ASEAN and India have notified the ASEAN-India FTA agreements to the WTO under the Enabling Clause on 23 August 2010.

The Ministers also took the opportunity to review progress of the Doha negotiations, remaining convinced that a strong multilateral system based on mutually beneficial outcomes in agriculture, NAMA and services are key to a stable and progressive global trading system, an official press release added.

NNN