The subsequent few months goes to see a flurry of exercise, with varied groups of Indian negotiators actively searching for to signal new commerce agreements with nations and areas such because the U.S. and European Union (EU) and amend the prevailing take care of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in keeping with authorities officials.
During a press briefing on Tuesday (July 15, 2025), senior officials within the Ministry of Commerce and Industry mentioned that India was seeing “good progress” in its negotiations with the EU, and less passable progress on the evaluate of the free commerce settlement with the ASEAN. They additionally mentioned that the Fall deadline for a Bilateral Investment Treaty with the U.S. was nonetheless in place.
“With regard to the EU, we have just finished the 12th round last week that was on Friday,” Special Secretary within the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Satya Srinivas mentioned. “We have exchanged our market access offers on services and non-services.”
Mr. Srinivas mentioned that the negotiators on each side may shut a “couple of chapters” of the deal and that they held lengthy discussions on different chapters the place there was a divergence.
“We had some sort of understanding that emerged on a few of those divergent issues,” he added. “All in all, it was a very productive round. I think we did cover a large number of areas and it will be the EU’s turn to come to India for the next round in the first week of September.”
Regarding the India-U.S. commerce deal, the Commerce Ministry officials confirmed {that a} staff from India is at present in Washington to barter the deal, their third such go to in the previous few months. They reiterated the Fall deadline for the conclusion of a Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA).
The Hindu has learnt that the Indian staff has taken sectoral specialists this time round to handle minute points.
According to sources, U.S. President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariff letters over the past week haven’t had any impact so far.
“If you look at the tariffs today, there are only announcements of tariffs,” a supply conscious of the negotiations informed The Hindu. “They have not come into effect. Except for the 10% baseline tariff, which is applicable for all countries, no other reciprocal tariff is there for any other country, except for China. China has got a 20% fentanyl tariff over and above this 10% baseline tariff.”
Apart from this, the U.S. has imposed sectoral tariffs on iron, metal, auto, and auto parts, which vary from 25-50%.
“The U.S. trade data shows that the fall in imports the country has faced are largely in these sectors, and in imports from China,” the supply additional mentioned. “U.S. imports from all other countries are either staying the same or growing.”
Special Secretary within the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Rajesh Agrawal mentioned that groups from India and ASEAN have held 9 rounds of conferences so far.
“The progress thus far has been chequered and we would have liked much more progress,” Mr Agrawal mentioned. “But the good part is we are moving on many aspects, especially on customs and trade facilitation. We are moving on technical cooperation, and there are discussions around market access.”
He added that the following two rounds are anticipated to be in New Delhi in August, and in Malaysia in October, respectively.
“We hope in these two rounds we should be able to see good progress and try to reach some kind of conclusion by the time the ASEAN-India Summit takes place in end-October,” he mentioned. “The endeavour is in that direction.”
