Though the preferential imports have been increasing from the period 2009-10 to 2014-15, they are still not significant, ranging from 5.9 per cent of total imports under the India-Malaysia comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) to 29.9 per cent of total imports under the India-Korea comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) during 2014-15.
"This clearly indicates the preferential imports under FTAs have not contributed to the increase in trade deficits with some countries," the commerce ministry said in its year-end review statement.
One of the methods of gauging this impact of FTAs on overall trade is through preferential trade data.
In this context, the department has analysed the broad trend of India's preferential imports under the FTAs with countries including Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, ASEAN and Malaysia.
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Some section of industry including exporters have raised concerns over these free trade pacts. They have stated that these agreements have benefited more to the partner countries.
A separate set of analysis on trade in products where preferences have been exchanged under the India-ASEAN, India-Japan and India-Korea FTAs was also carried out by external agencies such as the Centre for WTO Studies and the National Centre for Trade Information (NCTI), it said.
"This could thus be attributable to use of cost effective inputs for domestic manufacturing," it said.
Talking about plantation sector, it said that a policy for development of natural rubber sector is being formulated to address demands of the industry and growers.
A national level steering committee of departments, and research institutions in the public and private sector has been formed to coordinate and fast-track the research initiatives in the area of white stem borer and to address the problem of fall in productivity of arabica coffee, it said.
The Commerce Ministry said so far it has concluded 11 such
pacts and five limited scope preferential trade agreements.
The ministry has also said it aimed at increasing the exports of goods and services to about USD 900 billion by 2019-20 and raise India's share in world exports from present 3.5 per cent.
In 2014-15, the country's exports stood at USD 310.5 billion and the share in world exports is 2 per cent.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade, it said, is working on more steps with regard to ease of doing business such as online issuance of Export Obligation Discharge Certificate and message exchange with CBDT for PAN.