There are still large gaps between the two areas in areas such as intellectual property, public procurement, investment protection, labour, the environment and market access for sensitive products, which they say need to be addressed. Palit says India needs to start concluding bilateral trade agreements as soon as possible. His recipe for protecting India`s interests in a post-COVID-19 world comes at a time when negotiations on the customs free trade pact between the country and the EU, Australia and New Zealand are not yet finding any power to manoeuvre. According to Palit, India`s global trade interests would have been largely protected if the country had not left the RCEP mega-agreement, which, in its original form, had 16 nations, including India. The Eurasian Economic Union, composed of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, has concluded free trade agreements, see below. List of agreements being negotiated. Agreements that have so far been discussed only in the absence of formal action by the parties concerned are not mentioned. Note: Any customs union, every common market, any economic union, the Customs and Monetary Union and the Economic and Monetary Union are also a free trade area. Turkey has bilateral agreements with the People`s Republic of China: the People`s Republic of China has bilateral trade agreements with the blocs, countries and their two specific administrative regions:[13] “Indian exporters are concerned about the loss of their markets in the EU for essential products in Vietnam, where their competitor, under its free trade agreement with the bloc , will soon have the advantage of duty-free access. India can nullify this advantage by concluding its own free trade agreement, but it must act with caution, as an early agreement can cause the sector to lose more than it gains. As an ASEAN member, Vietnam is involved in the bloc`s regional free trade agreements with Korea, the EU, China, Japan and India. The Vietnamese government has also signed a series of bilateral agreements on intellectual property, science and technology with industrialized countries and more than 30 ILOs. Vietnam signed a fairly comprehensive bilateral trade agreement (BTA) with the United States in 2000.
It came into force in 2001. The BTA was part of the post-war “trade normalization” process between the two countries and was to be seen as the powerful precursor to a watertight U.S. free trade agreement. In June 2007, Hanoi and Washington signed a framework agreement on trade and investment, another step towards a possible free trade agreement. And in December 2008, the two governments began negotiating a bilateral investment agreement (ILO), which is another. The free trade agreement was ratified on June 8 and will ensure duty-free trade for 99 percent of the goods, as reported by Reuters. New Delhi is keen to accelerate its own bilateral free trade negotiations with the bloc, which could open up the conditions for competition for its exporters, but will not rush to an agreement, say experts and officials. The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement is an ambitious pact that must remove almost 99% of EU-Vietnam tariffs. EFTA [17] has bilateral agreements with the following countries and blocs, including dependent territories: the free trade pact signed between the emerging leader of Southeast Asia, Vietnam, and the 27-member Belgian customs bloc, the European Union (EU), does not bode well for India, exporters and trade experts told CNBC-TV18. Afghanistan has bilateral agreements with the following countries and blocs:[1] “As soon as there is a free trade agreement between the EU and Vietnam, European producers will be able to invest in that country and continue to export to other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, including a market such as China, because China and Vietnam will be part of a major free trade agreement under the next regional economic partnership.” said Amitendu Palit, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.