CII to finalise industry guidelines for FTAs soon

New Delhi, July 9 (UNI) The WTO and other Trade Agreements committee of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) will soon finalise the list of industry recommendations for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and submit it to the Government for consideration.

''India has been negotiating several FTAs for the last couple of years. The government should consider these recommendations as industry inputs for negotiating FTAs. The guidelines would include issues of negative list, common floor tariff and rules of origin,'' according to CII WTO and other Trade Agreements committee Chairman R V Kanoria.

Mr Kanoria flagged the idea that a multilateral agreement for trade liberalisation under WTO was more suitable for India as compared to bilateral trade and investment agreements.

Bilateral agreements have divergent standards with different countries and may not help India remain competitive in the international market, Mr Kanoria said.

He added that CII fully supported trade liberalisation, but cautioned that unilateral liberalisation of tariff should be calibrated with internal reforms like labour reforms, agriculture reforms, infrastructure developments etc.

''Without such calibration Indian industry would become uncompetitive in global and domestic markets,'' he said.

The Chairman said that before going in for a multilateral agreement, the government must go ahead full steam for domestic reforms in infrastructure, fiscal and labour, like China had done.

He called for a rethink on cuts in peak customs duty, till the domestic reforms are completed. ''What we want is not undue protection, but a level - playing field,'' he said.

On the on-going negotiations at the World Trade Organisation, Mr Kanoria said that CII was of the view that for the Doha Round to succeed member countries of the WTO need to focus on the development objective of the Round.

The Doha Round was launched for improving market access for developing countries and it must stick to that objective and not shift focus to look at increasing market access opportunities for developed countries, he added.

CII is of the view that developing countries must be provided with all the flexibilities available to them during the agricultural and NAMA negotiations.

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