Finance Ministry commences review of FTAs

With inputs from across industry that free trade agreements (FTAs) have been detrimental to India’s manufacturing sector, the Ministry of Finance has begun a comprehensive review of India’s past FTAs. The review will try to ascertain the impact of these agreements on the overall economy with the view being that they have mostly been helpful to the partner country. Also, the authorities note that there are instances when the imports are routed via the FTAs as compared to the domestic tariff route when the government raises customs duty, thereby defeating the purpose of restricting imports of a particular product. The Department of Revenue has flagged the blatant violation of rules of origin and value addition norms to increase exports to India.