India's FTAs: Threat or opportunity?

Our experience with the existing free trade agreements has been lukewarm. The industry must change for this to change

India signed a series of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) in Asia that came into force in the 2000s. Across industry and policy-makers, a view has emerged that these FTAs have not served India well, and even actively damaged Indian industry. Is this view correct?  Tales of woe of specific sectors and individual firms abound. What does the aggregate data show?

The success of an FTA should be judged against its objective of enhancing trade. If the proportion (and not just absolute level) of both imports and exports between the countries concerned has grown, then an FTA is successful for both