New Delhi, July 15 -- India has exported goods worth USD 140 million to the UK at zero duty under the comprehensive economic and trade agreement (CETA), which became operational on Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said.
He said that the agreement is a pact between two major and complementary economies. Terming the CETA as one of the "most aspirational" trade agreements by India to date, Agarwal said that over 800 technical sessions were held over 14 formal rounds of negotiations to conclude the pact.
"It is a win-win agreement between the two countries which will have a shadow across economic relations," Agrawal said while addressing industry and exporters on the day of operationalisation of the pact.
The Department of Commerce, he said, will work with export promotion councils to help industrial clusters understand the benefits of the agreement. The agreement grants duty-free access to nearly 99 per cent of Indian exports from sectors such as leather, footwear, textiles, mechanical and electrical machinery, plastic, base metals, marine products and gems and jewellery.
These sectors were earlier facing import duty in the UK market in the range of 2-16 per cent. The pact includes a chapter on government procurement, which provides Indian suppliers legal access to the UK government procurement market worth around GBP 90 billion (USD 122 billion). India offers reciprocal opportunities of around USD 114 billion to the British market.
UK suppliers receive treaty-backed access to covered central government procurement in India, and firms meeting a 20 pc UK-content threshold may qualify as Class 2 Local Suppliers.
Explaining the issue, Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Darpan Jain said that a number of safeguards are in the pact to protect the interests of domestic MSMEs. "India reserves the right to grant preferential treatment to its MSMEs as per its policy. So that is not affected," he said, adding that the GP commitments are not applicable at the state level.
Even at the central government level, he said, it is not applicable across all departments, PSUs and entities.
"There are selected entities to which it is applicable," Jain said, adding that in strategic sectors, the UK firms will not be allowed.
The fourth safeguard is that there is a minimum threshold under which UK firms can participate in government procurement contracts valued at more than Rs 5.5 crore.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.