India is engaging with multiple nations and blocs to increase its global trade footprint, aiming to bring about 75% of international trade under its free trade network, advancing its role in global supply chains amidst strategic negotiations.
India is in talks with eight or nine more country groupings and individual nations that together represent about $15 trillion in gross domestic product, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Monday, as New Delhi pushes to widen its trade network and deepen its role in global supply chains.
Speaking to business leaders from India and Japan, Goyal said the country has signed nine free trade agreements in the past four years, covering economies worth about $60 trillion in GDP and 38 developed countries. He added that earlier arrangements with Japan, South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations had opened access to another $10 trillion of GDP, taking the total pool of preferential market access to roughly $70 trillion.
Goyal said the next round of negotiations could lift that reach further and eventually bring around 75% of global trade under India’s free trade architecture. His remarks echo his earlier insistence that India does not rush into trade deals unless they are fair, balanced and equitable, with current negotiations including talks with the UK, Oman and the European Free Trade Association.
The minister is leading a delegation of more than 200 business representatives to Japan in an effort to strengthen investment and trade ties. He said opportunities for Japanese investors in India are especially strong in data centres, manufacturing and artificial intelligence, and argued that the growing economic relationship should move towards a more balanced flow of trade.
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