8th round of India-Peru Trade Agreement talks likely in June 2024

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal

The next round of negotiations for the India-Peru Trade Agreement is expected in June, 2024 and will be preceded by intersessional negotiations over video conferences to ensure that outstanding issues are resolved before the two parties meet again.

India and Peru recently concluded the seventh round of talks for a proposed free trade agreement that took place in New Delhi, India from April 8 to April 11, 2024, according to an official release on April 11.

This round of negotiations included discussions on chapters pertaining to trade in goods and services, movement of natural persons, Rules of Origin, custom procedures, dispute settlement and cooperation, among others. Around sixty delegates together from both sides participated in the talks.

While Peruvian Chief Negotiator, Gerardo Antonio Meza Grillo, Director for Asia, Oceania and Africa, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Republic of Peru emphasised that the negotiating teams should show flexibility and pragmatism to reach mutual solutions, India's Chief Negotiator and Additional Secretary, Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal said, "holding two rounds of negotiation within two months is itself a testimony to the willingness between both the countries to have a deeper economic cooperation" and stressed on the need to fast track talks.

The sixth round of talks for the proposed trade agreement between the two nations was held from February 12 to 14, 2024, in Lima, Peru, to continue the work that started in 2017 when the negotiation process was formally announced.

Peru has emerged as India's third-largest trading partner in Latin American and Caribbean Region. In the last two decades, trade between the two nations increased from $66 million in 2003 to around $ 3.68 billion in 2023.

Among the top-10 commodities that India exports to Peru are motor vehicles, cars, products of iron and steel, cotton yarn and fabrics. While the imports include bulk minerals and ores, gold, fertilizers, crude oil and zinc.

India has been negotiating a slew of free trade agreements with a bunch of nations and groupings including UK, Oman and the European Union.