New Delhi | Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said the first phase of the India-US trade pact has been finalised and is undergoing legal drafting.
He expressed the hope that it would be finalised soon and operationalised once India secures a competitive advantage over its peer countries.
"US bilateral trade agreement's first tranche has been finalised and it is going through final contours, the legal drafting, and we hope to be able to finalise that soon and operationalise that once we get the competitive advantage over our peer countries," Goyal said here at an event.
He also said that the free trade agreement between India and the European Union will be inked in December and would come into force from February or March next year.
Later Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said that the negotiations on the US trade pact are moving in the right direction.
"Probably we are in a very good zone. We anticipate closing the deal and signing the deal at the earliest possible time," he told reporters here.
Agarwal added that the trade deal has to be signed when the overall tariff structure would be formalised in the US.
"So there is a parallel work being done in the US also to get back the tariff structure and based on some of the outcomes under (Section) 301, we will progress towards signing the deal at a mutually agreed time," he said.
Regarding the legal drafting of the pact, Agarwal said it is going on.
