Speaking at the 27th Wharton India Economic Forum, he also said it was essential that the deal was balanced and in the best interests of both countries.
Goyal said, “We are well on our way to talks with several other countries to consider bilateral trade agreements. We are considering a trade deal,” he said. He said India cannot manufacture all products efficiently and imports are important for those products.
India will sign FTAs with the UAE in May 2022 and Australia in December 2022, and is negotiating such agreements with Canada, the EU and the UK.
He said India is competitive in several sectors, such as textiles, leather, footwear and labor-oriented sectors such as pharmaceuticals, for which these trade agreements are beneficial. For this reason, “I decided that it was necessary to discuss with like-minded countries, especially those with a rules-based trade order and a transparent economic system like India, and conclude a win-win agreement for both sides. Fairness. , fair and balanced.”
On the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which India decided not to join in 2019, Goyal said it was a very unfair and unbalanced deal and one of the RCEP group member states It said it had a “very opaque” trading system.
He said it will be important to focus on quality products and services going forward, with infrastructure, semiconductors and domestic manufacturing being some of the government’s priority areas. “In 2022, India conducted 74 billion digital financial transactions, more than Europe, the United States and China combined. We aspire to be and the rest of the world,” said Goyal.
