According to a statement from “the commerce ministry” on Thursday, India and Italy have spoken about the status of negotiations for the planned free trade agreement between India and the “European Union (EU)” and expressed hope for early completion.
The talks between India and the EU on a free trade agreement, investment protections, and “geographical indications (GI)” were restarted in January last year. Italy is a participant in the EU.
On April 12, the subject was raised during a meeting between the “deputy prime minister of Italy,” the “minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation,” Antonio Tajani, and the “minister of commerce and industry,” Piyush Goyal.
They also agreed to summon another session of “the Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation (JCEC)” in the last month of September in Rome.
In order to encourage greater collaboration, Mr. Tajani proposed the creation of a Joint Working Group in key sectors like agriculture, technology, defence, and space. Additionally, he advocated for enhancing the parliamentary friendship group diplomacy between the two countries parliaments and looking into the possibility of engaging in a cyber dialogue.
Additionally, Mr. Goyal stressed the importance of strengthening bilateral collaboration in the area of clean energy in order to achieve sustainability and lessen the adverse effects of climate change.
Speaking to the local business community here, Mr. Goyal stated that Italian enterprises had a tonne of investment prospects in India.
He stated that India exported goods and services worth $676 billion in 2021–2022. “We just closed March 31, 2022–2023 with an even stronger milestone of about $765 billion.” He expressed optimism that exports of goods would total $2 trillion by 2030.
With a total FDI of $3.25 billion between April 2000 and December 2022, Italy ranks as the 17th largest foreign investor in India. It represents around 0.52 per cent of the total FDI that India received during that time.
The majority of goods exported by India to Italy include ready-made clothing, leather, iron ore, automobiles, textiles, chemicals, diamonds, and jewellery. And India imports machines, tools, metallurgical goods, and engineering supplies from Italy.
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