India in active dialogue for trade pact with US, EU, Oman: Goyal

New Delhi, Oct 16 (PTI) India has implemented a number of free trade agreements with developed nations and is in active dialogue for such pacts with nations including the US, Oman, and the EU, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said.

India has implemented trade pacts with Australia, the UAE and EFTA bloc. It has also signed an agreement with the UK.

"We have done free trade agreements (FTAs) with many developed countries in the last three years...We are in active dialogue with the US, EU, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, and Oman," the minister told reporters here.

"It clearly shows that India is the favoured and preferred destination both for investment and for bilateral trade," he added.

Goyal also said that on Thursday, with Brazil also, he has discussed expanding preferential trade agreement from its current level so that "we can" in the future penetrate the South American market in a bigger way.

The Indian official team is in Washington at present to hold trade talks with their US counterparts. The team will be there till October 17. In February this year, leaders of India and the US directed officials to negotiate a proposed Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA).

They have fixed a deadline to conclude the first tranche of the pact by the fall (October-November) of 2025. So far, five rounds of negotiations have been completed. Last month, Goyal led an official delegation to New York for trade talks.

These deliberations are important as the relations between the two countries have been reeling under severe stress after the Trump administration imposed a steep 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods. It includes a 25 per cent additional import duty for buying Russian crude oil.

India has described these duties as "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable". The Indian industry has also raised concerns over Trump's new policy on H1B visas. However, the recent phone conversations between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump have raised hopes of a positive outcome from the ongoing negotiations for the trade deal.

After a brief gap, Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch held talks with Indian officials in New Delhi on September 16. In that meeting, both sides agreed to push for an early and mutually beneficial conclusion of the agreement.

The proposed pact aims to more than double the bilateral trade to USD 500 billion by 2030 from the current USD 191 billion. The US remained India's largest trading partner for the fourth consecutive year in 2024-25, with bilateral trade valued at USD 131.84 billion (USD 86.5 billion exports). It accounts for about 18 per cent of India's total goods exports, 6.22 per cent in imports, and 10.73 per cent in the country's total merchandise trade.

India's merchandise exports to the US declined by 11.93 per cent to USD 5.46 billion in September due to the high tariffs imposed by Washington while imports increased by 11.78 per cent to USD 3.98 billion during the month, according to the commerce ministry data. PTI RR ANU ANU