Texprocil’s chairman urges GoI to purse FTA with UK

Welcoming
the peaceful exit of Britain from the EU on 1st January 2021 after a negotiated
settlement, Manoj Patodia, Chairman of The Cotton Textiles Export Promotion
Council (TEXPROCIL) stated that the Government of India should take immediate
steps in formulating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the UK. The visit of the
UK’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson to India as a chief guest at the Republic
Day Parade on 26th January 2021 presents just the opportune moment to formulate
a comprehensive framework for commencing FTA negotiations.

Patodia
said that the UK is one of India’s largest trading partners amongst the
European countries in the T&C sector accounting for almost 24 per cent of
the T&C products exported from India to the EU. As per reports, he further pointed
out that the UK has already signed trade agreements with 62 countries ahead of
the end of the Brexit transition period on 1 January, 2021, including countries
like Turkey, Canada, Singapore, and Mexico. “It therefore becomes all the more
imperative for India to commence the process of negotiations without any delay
as India may lose the first mover advantage and consequent market share,”
Patodia said in a press release.

He
also requested the government to simultaneously revive and expedite the FTA
negotiation with the EU, as it is one the leading markets for India’s exports
of T&C products where competing countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan,
Vietnam have an edge over India due to a zero tariff arrangement.

India’s
exports to the EU, he pointed have been stagnating over the last 6 years while
countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Pakistan have shown positive export
growth to EU during the same period. Patodia said that any further delay will
only serve to hamper India’s T&C exports as the competing countries will
surge ahead.