Goyal says India negotiating FTAs with 8-9 more blocs, aims to cover 75% of global trade
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry stated that India is currently negotiating Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with 8-9 more country blocs and individual nations, which together represent an additional USD 15 trillion of GDP.
India has signed nine FTAs over the last four years, giving it preferential market access to economies worth a combined USD 60 trillion, including 38 developed countries.
Earlier trade pacts, including those with Japan, South Korea, and the ASEAN region, had already opened access to roughly USD 10 trillion of GDP for Indian goods and services.
Once the agreements under negotiation are concluded, India's FTA network is projected to cover about 75% of global trade, positioning the country as a larger node in global value chains.
The remarks were made during an official visit to Japan, in an interaction with Indian and Japanese business representatives.
Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and their variants
An FTA is a treaty between two or more countries/blocs to reduce or eliminate tariffs, quotas, and other trade barriers on goods and, in more comprehensive versions, on services and investment. India uses several labels depending on scope: a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) or Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) covers goods, services, investment, and IPR, while a narrower FTA may cover goods alone. India is a WTO member and FTAs are permitted as an exception to the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) principle under GATT Article XXIV (goods) and GATS Article V (services), provided they cover "substantially all trade."
Key Details
- India-ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement: signed August 2009, in force from 1 January 2010; Services and Investment agreements followed in 2014-15.
- India-Japan CEPA: signed February 2011, in force from 1 August 2011; eliminates tariffs on over 94% of traded items over 10 years.
- India-South Korea CEPA: signed August 2009, in force from 1 January 2010; Korea phases out tariffs on ~90% of Indian goods, India on ~85% of Korean goods.
- India-UAE CEPA (2022) and India-Australia ECTA (2022) are the most recent completed pacts; India-UK FTA and India-EFTA TEPA are among the newer agreements in the last four years.
The USD 60 trillion of GDP already covered stems from this cumulative stack of FTAs/CEPAs signed since the early 2010s. The 8-9 blocs under negotiation (reported to include the US, EU, Oman, Peru, Chile, and others) would extend this MFN-exception network further, pushing coverage toward 75% of global trade.
Global Value Chains (GVCs) and trade policy strategy
A Global Value Chain is the cross-border sequence of activities (design, production, assembly, distribution) through which a good or service is created. Countries seek to raise their GVC participation to capture higher-value stages of production, generate manufacturing jobs, and diversify supply chains away from single-country dependence (a concern amplified by the "China Plus One" trend since 2020).
Key Details
- India's GVC integration is measured by both backward participation (imported inputs used in exports) and forward participation (domestically made inputs used in others' exports).
- The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, through the Department of Commerce, is the nodal authority for FTA negotiations in India.
- FTAs are seen as a policy lever to attract export-oriented investment and integrate Indian manufacturing (e.g., electronics, textiles, pharmaceuticals) into GVCs.
Widening the FTA network to 75% of global trade is explicitly framed as a way to embed India more deeply into GVCs, since preferential access reduces the tariff cost of importing components and exporting finished goods across partner markets.
- India's current FTA network gives preferential access to USD 70 trillion of the global economy (about 25% higher than the figure a year earlier per official statements).
- 8-9 blocs/countries under negotiation account for an additional USD 15 trillion of GDP.
- Nine FTAs signed in the last four years cover USD 60 trillion of GDP across 38 developed countries.
- Target: FTA network to eventually cover approximately 75% of global trade.
- India-Japan CEPA (2011) and India-Korea CEPA (2010) remain foundational examples of India's "Look East"/"Act East" trade diplomacy.