Page 34 - Trade

Goyal meets Micron CEO, discusses options in India semiconductor ecosystem

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal held a meeting with the CEO of Micron Technology Sanjay Mehrotra on Wednesday (local time) and discussed how India's growing semiconductor ecosystem presents vast opportunities for company to collaborate and expand its footprint in India.Taking to X, Piyush Goyal stated, "Met Mr. Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO & President of @MicronTech. Discussed how India's growing semiconductor ecosystem presents vast opportunities for the company to collaborate & expand its footprint in the country."Earlier this July, Mehrotra had met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat's Gandhinagar and they discussed US chip giant's plans to bolster the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem within India.In June this year, Micron Technology had announced its plans of investing USD825 million in a new chip assembly and testing plan in Gujarat. India hopes to become a major global hub in semiconductor manufacturing over the next 10 years.Meanwhile, Goyal,

Jaishankar concludes timely visit to UK amid substantial progress on FTA

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar concluded his five-day visit to the UK on Wednesday, which he described as timely after a series of cross-party engagements amid substantial progress on the ongoing free trade agreement negotiations. During a media interaction at the High Commission of India in London before leaving, the EAM shared some insights from his discussions with the UK Cabinet ministers and Opposition leaders which covered a whole spectrum of global and bilateral issues. India's concerns regarding pro-Khalistan extremism in relation to the safety of its diplomats in the country were among the topics that came up during his meetings with UK Home Secretary James Cleverly and National Security Adviser (NSA) Tim Barrow. We have long-standing concerns about extremist and sometimes even violent activities of various forces, including those who propagate Khalistan, said Jaishankar. We have been trying to get the government here to understand that while we as a fellow democra

India, US, 12 other IPEF members ink supply chain resilience agreement

India, the US and 12 other members of the IPEF grouping have signed a supply chain resilience agreement that would provide benefits like potential shifting of production centres in critical sectors and mitigating risks of economic disruptions from supply chain shocks. The agreement was signed in San Francisco, where Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is attending the ministerial meeting of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework For Prosperity (IPEF). The agreement would help member countries like India to reduce its dependence on China. The COVID outbreak had severely disrupted the global supply chain, as most countries were dependent on China for various products, like pharma raw materials. On the social networking platform X, on Wednesday, Goyal said: "India joins US and 12 other IPEF partners to ink the IPEF Supply Chain Resilience Agreement, a first-of-its-kind international agreement that will fortify and strengthen global supply chains; and foster adaptability, stabilit

Jaishankar, Cameron discuss progressing India-UK Free Trade Agreement

The duo also discussed shared global challenges, including the situation in Israel and Gaza and the war between Russia and Ukraine

Trade with Africa in excess of $100 billion, is fairly evenly balanced: EAM

The EAM said that in the last decade, a bulk of Indian embassies have also opened in Africa

India proposes slashing EV import taxes to clinch UK free trade deal

The UK's demand for import concessions on electric vehicles is one of the few outstanding issues in the free trade talks

Kuala Lumpur looking at accepting RuPay, UPI service: Malaysian FM

India and Malaysia are firming up a framework for conducting trade in national currencies and initiating a process to review the 12-year-old comprehensive economic cooperation agreement to include new domains and items, Malaysian Foreign Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir said. At the end of a three-day visit to India, Kadir told PTI that Malaysia is also in the process of accepting India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system and RuPay payment service that will boost overall financial engagement. The Malaysian foreign minister said Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is likely to visit India in the first half of next year in reflection of growing upswing in overall ties between the two nations. He said both sides are keen to expand trade engagement in new and emerging areas such as electronics, semiconductors, fintech, renewable energy, new technology and startups besides joining hands in defence industrial cooperation. Ways to further boost the overall trajectory of ties were discussed ...

India, United Kingdom negotiations for proposed FTA going on, says Official

Negotiations between senior officials of India and the UK on the proposed free trade agreement are going on with a view to bridge differences on issues related to goods and services sector, a senior government official said. "Talks on the 13th round is underway virtually. We have not talked about any deadlines to conclude talks," the official said. India and Britain launched the talks for Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) in January 2022, with an aim to conclude talks by Diwali (October 24, 2022), but the deadline was missed due to political developments in the UK. There are 26 chapters in the agreement, which include goods, services, investments, and intellectual property rights. The investment treaty is being negotiated as a separate agreement between India and the UK. The Indian industry is demanding greater access for its skilled professionals from sectors like IT, and healthcare in the UK market, besides market access for several goods at nil customs duties. On the other hand, the

FM Nirmala Sitharaman seeks global help to nab smuggling masterminds

Export-import frauds threaten the global supply chain and are inimical to economic and national security

India, EU discuss progress in the Free Trade Agreement negotiations

The Group of Seven is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and the US

India pitches for clear definition of e-commerce trade in goods in WTO

India has asked the WTO members to work on a clear definition of e-commerce trade in goods and services as it would help provide developing countries a policy space to make decisions on the fast-growing sector, an official said. At present, there is a difference of understanding about the subject between developed and developing member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The issue came up for discussion during a recent meeting of senior officials of WTO members in Geneva last week. "India stated that the definition should be clear about digital goods and services because customs duties are there on goods and not on services. The Western world wants no customs duties, and on the other hand, developing countries want that policy space to impose the duties," the official said. Customs duties help protect domestic industries and provide a policy space to support the growth of MSMEs. Though certain WTO members have been discussing the e-commerce issue since 1998, there is

India criticises safeguard measures on steel import by EU, UK at WTO meet

Certain WTO countries, including India, Switzerland, Russia, and Japan, have criticised the safeguard measures imposed by the EU and the UK on imports of certain steel products, stating it is inconsistent with global trade rules, an official said. The comments were made by these countries during the meeting of World Trade Organisation's (WTO's) Safeguards Committee on Wednesday. The Geneva-based official said, "Switzerland, Brazil, Japan, China, Korea, Russia and India criticised the European Union's decision to maintain its safeguard measure on imports of certain steel products, which was imposed by the EU after the US imposed additional duties on steel imports during the Trump administration. These members regretted the EU's decision not to terminate the measure during a recent review and argued the safeguard was inconsistent with WTO rules, the official said. However, the EU argued that the safeguard will expire at the end of June 2024. Further India, Korea, Switzerland, Japan,

India, Saudi Arabia commerce ministers discuss ways to promote trade ties

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday held discussions with his Saudi Arabian counterpart Majid bin Abdullah AlKassabi on ways to further promote trade ties between the two countries. Goyal was in Riyadh for two days to attend the seventh edition of Future Investment Initiative (FII). "Discussed how the robust India-Saudi trade ties can be further scaled to make global supply chains more resilient," Goyal said on social platform X. He also met Saudi Arabia Energy Minister Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Salman Al-Saud; Investment Minister Khalid A Al Falih; Industry and Mineral Resources Minister Bandar bin Ibrahim AlKhorayef; and Governor Public Investment Fund (PIF) Yassir Rummayyan. Goyal talked about the multiple opportunities offered by India. The bilateral trade between the countries stood at USD 52.75 billion in 2022-23 against USD 42.86 billion in 2021-22. India received USD 3.22 billion in foreign direct investment from Saudi Arabia between April 2000 and June 2

NCEL gets Rs 7,000 cr orders, to share profit with member farmers: Shah

Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Monday said the newly established National Cooperative for Exports Ltd (NCEL) has bagged orders worth Rs 7,000 crore so far and the export body will share at least 50 per cent profit with member farmers over and above the support price. NCEL, which was established on January 25, is negotiating orders worth Rs 15,000 crore, he said after launching a logo, website and brochure of the cooperative export body. NCEL will help cooperative societies tap the global export market and handhold them to produce and manufacture products that comply with international standards, he added. There are about 8 lakh cooperative societies in the country with over 29 crore members. "Currently, NCEL is operating from a temporary office. We are recruiting staffers. So far, we (NCEL) have received orders of Rs 7,000 crore and negotiating orders worth Rs 15,000 crore," Shah said while addressing a national symposium here. NCEL will purchase commodities to be exported from

Senior officials meet of WTO members to begin from tomorrow in Geneva

From India, senior officials, including Additional Secretary in the commerce ministry Peeyush Kumar, have reached the WTO headquarter in Geneva

Govt to ensure trusted supply chain for digital ecosystem: Official

India is determined to ensure a trusted supply chain for its digital ecosystem and will not compromise on the security of the internet, an IT Ministry official said on Wednesday, after the US, China and Korea raised concerns over the decision to impose import curbs on laptops and computers at a recent WTO meeting. These concerns were flagged in the meeting of the WTO Committee on Market Access. It was chaired by Renata Crisaldo of Paraguay on October 16 in Geneva. The senior IT Ministry official on Wednesday affirmed that India is determined, indeed justified, in ensuring that the digital backbone and ecosystem are trusted and without any compromise. "...We are very clear and determined that we want an absolutely trusted supply chain for the Indian digital ecosystem, and especially, when we are just going to take off, and the entire internet is going to be built on servers, clouds and data centres," the official said in response to a question on the US and Korea raising concerns ove

Hopes of sealing India-UK trade deal this month may be fading: Report

The hope that the ongoing 13th round of negotiations towards an India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) could conclude with a deal for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to sign off in time for the India versus England World Cup cricket clash in Lucknow on October 29 seem to be fading, according to a UK media report on Wednesday. The Financial Times' quoted officials briefed on the negotiations to say that a lack of movement towards opening up of the Indian market to British professional services in the field of law and accountancy is among the factors for the slowdown. So much so that cricket fan Sunak's proposed return visit to India after an inaugural visit as UK Prime Minister to New Delhi for the G20 Summit last month is looking very, very unlikely to happen. The discussions are not where we want them to be, the newspaper quoted a British official familiar with the talks as saying. The Prime Minister has said he will not sign a trade deal on arbitrary deadlines. He's going to do t

Govt maintains basmati rice floor price as grain export curbs continue

India imposed a $1,200 per ton minimum export price (MEP) on basmati rice shipments in August to calm local prices ahead of key state elections

Govt extends 20% tax on exports of parboiled rice until March 2024

The 20 per cent export duty on parboiled rice was imposed on August 25 till October 16 to maintain adequate local stock and keep domestic prices under check

India, Brazil target over 3-fold rise in trade to $50 bn: Commerce secy

India and Brazil are looking at an "aspirational" target of increasing the two-way trade by over three-fold to USD 50 billion by 2030, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said on Friday. He was in Brasilia from October 1 to 4 to discuss ways to promote trade between the two countries. He chaired the sixth meeting of the India-Brazil Trade Monitoring Mechanism (TMM). At present, the bilateral trade stood at USD 15.2 billion. "We are looking at USD 30 billion in the next 3-4 years and by 2030, we are looking at an aspirational target of USD 50 billion. There is a huge potential for trade growth," he told reporters here. He added that during his visit, the two sides also discussed market access issues as well as new areas of cooperation. Two working groups have been formed - market access issues and sectors of cooperation. "Biofuels and renewables are important sectors which we will be looking at...Ethanol and biofuel blending is another area of cooperation," he said. Brazil has adva