 "SUNIL BARTHWAL Commerce secretary")
Negotiations on a free-trade agreement (FTA) between India and the United Kingdom (UK) are at an “advanced stage”, with both sides attempting to iron out differences, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said on Friday.
Barthwal met his British counterpart in London last week to give a push to negotiations.
They are meeting in New Delhi this week to negotiate tough issues.
“We should wait until the negotiations are over. The 13th round is going on and we are doing these negotiations on a weekly basis now,” Barthwal said.
The statement is significant amid expectations that the countries will sign the agreement by the end of the month, during UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s visit to India.
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Laptop imports
The government is working on an import management system — laptops, tablets, and other IT hardware — and it will come into effect on November 1.
After the notification in August, when import curbs on IT hardware were announced, the IT ministry and Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) have had stakeholder consultations.
“The stakeholders had raised a number of concerns, one of them being ... having an end-to-end online system, which will ensure that issuance is fairly streamlined. To an extent where issuance is automated and flows online to the Department of Revenue... that is a work in progress and it will be put in place before October 30,” DGFT Santosh Sarangi told reporters.
The commerce secretary said: “We are only saying laptop importers have to be under close watch so that we can look at those imports. We have a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme in the sector, so we are also looking at production-capacity figures.”
There will be no restriction on imports, he added.
IPEF
Another commerce department official said that Pillars 3 and 4 — clean and fair economy — under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) were expected to close this month.
“We look forward to a substantial conclusion. The next round in Malaysia (next week) and the ministerial meeting in San Francisco will be on November 13-14,” Additional Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said.
