India's Trade with FTA countries up 7.1% in 5 yrs: Govt tells Rajya Sabha

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Piyush Goyal said that while there has been growth in both imports and exports to these FTA partners, the utilisation rates of these pacts have been moderate

An internal assessment of India's free and preferential trade agreements with countries, including Singapore, Japan, Korea and Malaysia, has showed that the cumulative average growth rate in trade with these partners over the last five financial years was 7.1 per cent, Parliament was informed on Friday.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that while there has been growth in both imports and exports to these FTA (free trade agreement) partners, the utilisation rates of these pacts have been moderate.

An analysis of preferential import data for some of these agreements indicates that the FTA utilisation rates have been moderate to high in case of some sectors like iron and steel for the India-Korea agreement and India-Japan pact, he said.

"An internal assessment of India's bilateral FTAs or PTAs with Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Bhutan, Nepal, Republic of Korea and Malaysia reveals that the CAGR in trade with these partners over the last 5 financial years was 7.1 per cent," he said.

The minister said that the review of trade agreements is undertaken on the basis of mutual consent of the trading partners and demand from domestic stakeholders.

He also said that eight rounds of negotiations have been completed for the review of India-Korea agreement which commenced in 2016.

In a separate reply, he said period of examination of new trademark applications has been reduced from 13 months to less than 30 days.

"11.25 lakh trademark registrations in just four and half years (2015 to 2019) as compared to 11 lakh registrations during 75 years (1940-2015)," he added.

Patent examination, he said, has also increased from 22,631 in 2014-15 to 85,426 in 2018-19.

"Grant of patents has increased from 5,978 in 2014-15 to 15,283 in 2018-19," he said.