India, EU agree to give market access in services

G Sudhakar Nair
Brussels, Dec 10 (PTI) India and the EU on Friday agreed
to give each other "real additional" market in services in the
proposed FTA and retain flexibility for Indian pharmaceuticals
to export off-patent drugs as provided in a WTO agreement.
The Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA),
expected to be concluded in the few months, seeks to open
bilateral commerce not only in merchandise but also in
services like insurance.
Faced with economic troubles, the 27-nation EU bloc has
been wanting India to liberalise its insurance sector and open
the multi-brand retail to foreign investment.
Liberalisation in these two areas are among the key
demands of the European Union.
"The EU and India agree that the final outcome should
provide real additional market opportunities for both sides.
This will be reflected in offers which will be exchanged by
early date," a joint report on the state of play of
negotiations for BTIA said.
The joint report was presented to Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and European Council President Herman Van
Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso
at the EU-India Summit here.
It said the good progress has been reached on reducing
tariffs and the revised offers would give advantage to India.
It was made clear that India's concerns on flexibility to
its USD 22 billion pharmaceutical industry should be
addressed. The Trade Related Intellectual Rights (TRIPS)
agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), provides
right to member countries to manufacture and export off-patent
generic drugs. However, the EU had been demanding that a
stricter regime be applied in the India-EU bilateral pact.
The Indian industry was opposed to this demand and the
government had assured them that the domestic policy space
would not be compromised.
Pledging to speed up the negotiations to conclude them
in the spring of 2011, the report said "both sides have agreed
to intensify work on all pending areas and meet at the chief
negotiators level on at least a monthly basis".
The areas on which consensus is yet to emerge relate to
environment, transparency and government procurement.
The EU is facing pressure from some of its members to
include environment related issues in the trade agreement,
which India is resisting.
The joint report said that the final outcome would
address concerns of the two sides. "Discussions on sustainable
development are ongoing to identify the basis for agreement on
the this issue taking in to the account the interest and
concerns of the both the sides," it said. PTI GSN
HMI