The Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between ASEAN and India was signed in October 2003 and served as a legal basis to conclude further agreements, including Trade in Goods Agreement, Trade in Services Agreement, and Investment Agreement that form the ASEAN-Indian Free Trade Area (AIFTA) The ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement was signed and entered into force on 1 January 2010. Under the Agreement, the ASEAN Member States and India have agreed to open their respective markets by progressively reducing and eliminating duties on 76.4% coverage of goods. The ASEAN-India Trade in Services Agreement was signed in November 2014. It contains provisions on transparency, domestic regulations, recognition, market access, national treatment, and dispute settlement. The ASEAN-India Investment Agreement was also signed in November 2014. The Investment Agreement stipulates protection of investment to ensure fair and equitable treatment for investors, non-discriminatory treatment in expropriation or nationalization as well as fair compensation. Economic co-operation activities under the AIFTA are now being undertaken on agriculture, fisheries and forestry; services; mining and energy; science and technology; transport and infrastructure; manufacturing; human resource development; and other sectors such as handicrafts, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), competition policy, Mekong Basin Development, intellectual property rights, and government procurement.

India and Australia have signed a historic interim Economic Cooperation And Trade Agreement (INDAUS ECTA), which will give a fillip to India’s exports in the textiles, leather, gems, and jewelry sector Down Under. For India, the ECTA with Australia is the first agreement with a large developed economy of the world after more than a decade. Australia is also the third OECD country after Japan and South Korea with which India has signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The two sides will be negotiating for a full-fledged Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA). It covers almost all the tariff lines dealt in by India and Australia respectively. India will benefit from preferential market access provided by Australia on 100% of its tariff lines. India will be offering preferential access to Australia on over 70% of its tariff lines. Under the agreement, Indian graduates from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) will be granted extended post-study work visas. It will provide zero-duty access to 96% of India’s exports to Australia and will give about 85% of Australia’s exports zero-duty access to the Indian market It will boost bilateral trade in goods and services to USD 45-50 billion over five years, up from around USD 27 billion, and generate over one million jobs in India, according to a government estimate.

India-UAE CEPA was signed in February 2022 and officially entered into force in May 2022. The CEPA is comprehensive in nature and covers trade in goods, rules of origin, trade in services, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, dispute settlement, and digital trade, among other areas. India is likely to benefit from preferential market access provided by the UAE on over 97 % of its tariff lines which account for 99% of Indian exports to the UAE in value terms, particularly from labor-intensive sectors such as gems and jewelry, textiles, leather, footwear, sports goods, plastics, furniture, agricultural (including food-processing) and wood products, engineering products, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and automobiles. In services, the Indian service providers are projected to have enhanced access to the UAE market in 11 broad service sectors.

UAE is India’s third-largest exporting partner and bilateral goods trade between the two sides reached US$ 43 billion in 2020-21. Overall, the CEPA is expected to increase the total value of bilateral trade in goods to over US$100 billion and trade in services to over US$ 15 billion within five years. This report is an attempt to highlight the broad provisions of the Agreement to the industry to help them make the best possible use of the offered concessions and increase trade volumes in the near future.

...