By Ajinkya Gunjan Mishra (Partner, L&L Partners) & Avani Tewari (Associate, L&L Partners).
International trade and commerce are critical to sustaining the economic development of a country. To attain high growth momentum, a Country must engage in trade negotiations and agreements at multilateral, regional, and bilateral levels. India has been a party to several bilateral and regional trade agreements, and quite a few important ones are under negotiations and slated to be finalised soon.
However, India’s experience with the trade agreements has so far been mixed: favourable trade balance mostly in the case of smaller partners, and deficit with the larger ones. This coupled with the fact that trade agreements have been misused by availing preferential duty rate against the import of goods that did not meet the originating criteria have only added to the government’s list of concerns.
