Govt plans to formulate SOPs for negotiating free trade agreements

India is considering formulating standard operating procedures (SOP) for negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) as the country is engaging with several trade partners for such pacts, an official said. To discuss the various aspects of these agreements, the commerce ministry is organising a two-day 'Chintan Shivir' on FTA strategy and SOPs for trade negotiations. Former commerce secretaries, industry experts and government officials would participate in the deliberations on May 16-17 at Neemrana, Rajasthan. Various issues that would come up for deliberations include India's trade strategy and vision 2047; economic assessment and modelling of FTAs; inclusion of new disciplines into FTAs such as labour, environment, gender, indigenous people; services and digital trade; SOPs for FTA negotiations; and industry experience on utilisation of the FTAs. A separate session is being organised on leveraging India's FTAs to address new forms/kind of measures such as CBAM (carbon border ...