India to take decisions on IPEF aspects based on national interest: Piyush Goyal

Commerce Minister & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal (File Image)

India will take decisions on different aspects of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) based on its national interest, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said.

Earlier, he attended the first in-person ministerial meeting of the IPEF in Los Angeles.

Interacting with media on the sidelines of the meeting, he said that there have been useful engagements with the 14 members of the IPEF and the officials from member nations had worked hard to prepare a ground for such fruitful interactions.

He expressed hope that in a day's time, IPEF would finalize a framework within which member nations could interact on different areas of mutual interest.

The minister assured that "India will take decisions on different aspects of the frameworks of IPEF based on our national interest". The IPEF was launched jointly by the US and other partner countries of the Indo-Pacific region on May 23 in Tokyo.

It seeks to strengthen economic partnership among participating countries with the objective of enhancing resilience, sustainability, inclusiveness, economic growth, fairness and competitiveness in the region. The 14 members of the IPEF are -- Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the US.

The framework is structured around four pillars relating to Trade (Pillar I); Supply Chains (Pillar II); Clean Economy (Pillar III); and Fair Economy (Pillar IV).