Thaindian News

New Delhi, Jan 18 (IANS) Trade officials of India and the 27-nation European Union (EU) will hold another round of negotiations next week to iron out differences over sticky issues like environment and labour that’s coming in the way of a free trade area agreement (FTA) between them.
“The talks are making progress. Issues like market access, public procurement, sustainable development and intellectual property rights will be discussed,” the EU’s envoy to India Daniele Smadja told journalists here Monday at a function held to commemorate the anniversary of the Lisbon treaty.

At the 10th India-EU summit Nov 6 last year, leaders of both sides decided to fast-track negotiations over a free trade area agreement with a view to wrapping it by the end of 2010.

“We agreed to expedite the conclusion of a balanced and mutually beneficial broad-based agreement on trade and investment that will lead to increased economic opportunities and creation of jobs as well as wealth,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said at the end of the day-long summit.

The two sides launched negotiations in 2007 for the FTA, but negotiations are dragging due to differences over intellectual property rights and EU’s stance to link trade with climate and other extraneous issues like child labour.

India has made it clear that only trade and investment issues were up for negotiations and has conveyed its principled opposition to non-trade issues like child labour and environmental laws in the trade talks.

The broad-based trade and investment pact has the potential to double bilateral trade from over $100 billion to $200 billion by 2013.

The EU is India’s largest trading partner and accounts for one-fifth of its exports.