Free Trade Agreement (FTA)

In the absence of even an FTA, the main challenge before policy makers from India and the EU will be to continue justifying the relevance of a strategic partnership to their respective constituencies.

• Gulshan Sachdeva
• February 07, 2012
• IDSA Comments

Because an FTA would raise issues like market access, elimination of tariffs, quantitative restrictions etc., negotiations are likely to drag on for several rounds

• Rajaram Panda
• May 20, 2011
• IDSA Comments

With APEC accounting for half the world’s global economic output and 44 per cent of its trade value, Japan’s role in creating a region wide free-trade zone and developing a strategy for economic growth of the Asia Pacific is expected to be decisive for the world economy.

• Pranamita Baruah
• February 25, 2010
• IDSA Comments

Clearly, there is immense scope for cooperation between India and Myanmar to deal in agro-based products, floriculture, engineering, timber and tobacco and expand business cooperation. Although there has been a significant increase in bilateral trade in recent years, full potential has yet to be realised.

• Saurabh
• January 06, 2010
• IDSA Comments

The collapse of the ASEAN Summit in Pattaya (Thailand) on April 11 following anti-government protests tarnished Thailand’s image. It also brought the regional group’s age-old policy of non-interference in the domestic trivials of a member state under question. The incident impeded ASEAN’s strategy to define a common approach to current global financial crisis. The Pattaya incident also demonstrated the ineffectiveness of ASEAN as a regional organization.

• Pranamita Baruah
• May 04, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The landslide victory of the Awami League led by Sheikh Hasina in the December 29, 2008 parliamentary elections ended the two-year old political uncertainty in Bangladesh and marks the return of a democratic government. With 262 seats out of 299 for the Awami League-led Grand Alliance, Sheikh Hasina is entrusted with the onus of opening a new era in the history of Bangladesh. The mandate clearly shows that people voted to power the party that won the country’s independence from Pakistan, and rejected the BNP-led four-party combine which got only 32 seats.

• M. Shamsur Rabb Khan
• January 09, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The spate of talks and meetings between India and Bangladesh is unmatched in recent times. This pace alone sets bilateral relations apart from the five long years when the BNP-led coalition government was in power (2000-05) in Bangladesh. The recent (July 17, 2008) Foreign Secretary level talks have once again brought home the fact of how the interim government in Bangladesh without having to pander to any particular constituency has been able to constructively engage with its largest neighbour.

• Sreeradha Datta
• July 24, 2008
• IDSA Comments

The recently concluded Foreign Secretary level talks in Dhaka between India and Bangladesh saw agreement on three broad issues. The first of these related to sharing of intelligence pertaining to security. Secondly, India agreed to provide greater access to Bangladeshi goods to the Indian market, as earlier announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the SAARC summit held in New Delhi. And thirdly, the two countries agreed to take steps to implement the 1974 Indira-Mujib land boundary agreement, which has been a long-standing demand of Bangladesh.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• July 17, 2007
• IDSA Comments