Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) vs Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
A CEPA is a deeper, broader trade instrument than a conventional FTA. While an FTA principally addresses tariff elimination on goods, a CEPA additionally covers trade in services, investment facilitation, intellectual property rights, technical barriers to trade, and regulatory cooperation — structured as parallel negotiating "tracks" running simultaneously.
- India's CEPAs to date: India-UAE CEPA (signed 18 February 2022, in force 1 May 2022) and India-Australia agreements have followed this multi-track template.
- Both countries' negotiating texts for goods, services and IP are negotiated as separate chapters, which are then consolidated into a single legal agreement before signature.
- Legally, a CEPA still relies on GATT Article XXIV (goods) and GATS Article V (services) as the WTO-compatible basis for preferential treatment among the parties, departing from the Most-Favoured-Nation obligation owed to other WTO members.
● Tracked since July 12, 2026 · last seen August 28, 2026 · updates as the daily brief publishes
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