Dairy sensitive sector; no plans to open up in any FTAs: Piyush Goyal

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said dairy is a sensitive sector in India as it involves livelihood issues of small farmers and there are no plans at all to give any kind of duty concessions under any Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in this area.

He said that India has not given any duty concessions in the dairy sector even to Switzerland and Norway under the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) trade pact, which was signed in March.

With Australia also, he said, that the sector was discussed but India clearly conveyed the sensitivities involved in this area.

"Our average holding with the farmer is small. It is 2-3 acre farm with 3-4 live stocks whereas Australia's farm and their dairy farms are both very large and it would be near impossible for these large and small farms to compete with each other on a common footing.

"We had discussed this issue even three years ago and on earlier occasions also and the dairy is such a sensitive sector that in any of our FTAs across the world, we have not been able to open up the sector with duty concessions," Goyal told reporters in a joint press conference at Adelaide. The minister is in Australia for bilateral talks to promote trade and investments.

He said that the sector is open for trade but there are certain customs duties imposed on that.

"We have neither opened up dairy for Europe nor planning to open up...nor have we opened it even with Switzerland and Norway with whom we have recently signed EFTA trade agreement," he said adding "This is the agreement that Switzerland has signed without any component of dairy in it".

On a question about the agri sector, Don Farrell, the Minister of Trade and Tourism of Australia, said that they are seeking duty cuts for commodities like chickpeas, pistachio, and Apples.

"Some of the difficult issues, we have put them to one side," he said.

India and Australia have implemented an interim trade agreement in December 2022 and now they are in negotiations to widen the scope of the pact through a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement.

The bilateral trade between the two countries has dipped to $24 billion in 2023-24 from $26 billion in 2022-23. The trade is in favour of Australia as India's exports stood at $7.94 billion in the last fiscal year, while imports were at $16.15 billion.

Australia is the 25th largest investor in India with foreign direct investments of $1.5 billion during April 2000 and June 2024.

Goyal also announced the opening up of the Invest India office in Sydney to help promote bilateral investments.

He said that India offers huge opportunities for investments as it has the advantage of four 'Ds' - democracy, demographic dividend, demand and decisive leadership.

The two sides are looking to double the bilateral trade to $100 billion in the coming years.