India-ASEAN FTA review sees little progress

ASEAN members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Negotiations for a review of the Free Trade Agreement between India and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) have made little progress despite nine rounds of talks, a senior government official said.

"The ASEAN nations are stonewalling the review even as India is only trying to balance the gains from the deal since their imports to India have risen way more than our exports to them," this official added.

The FTA, which came into effect in 2010, has been criticised by the current government for not adequately addressing the trade imbalance, with imports from ASEAN growing faster than India's exports to the region.

"Indian exports to the ASEAN have doubled over the last 15 years, but our imports from ASEAN have more than tripled. India is exporting around $38-39 billion to them, while their export to India is $86 billion, so the gap is huge," this official said.

While the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) is under review since February 2024, the official said that India has to push for a solution to balance the gains.

When the agreement was signed in 2009, India opened up 71 percent of its tariff lines to the ASEAN countries whereas in return Indonesia offered access to only 41 percent, Vietnam 66.5 percent, and Thailand 67 percent, the source elaborated.

Recently, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal criticised the previous Congress-led government's decision to enter into a trade agreement with the ASEAN grouping, terming the move as "silly".

Last year too, the minister had warned that India may have to take retaliatory measure if ASEAN fails to address the country’s long-standing concerns over non-tariff barriers as part of the ongoing review of the FTA, which ends in 2025.

ASEAN members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The bloc is one of India's major trading partners with a share of about 11 percent in the country's global trade.