Mumbai:
India is offering fresh tariff concessions on a range
of imports, including sensitive agricultural products,
from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean),
in a bid to conclude a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with
the grouping.
The
revised proposals submitted by India, ahead of an Asean
economic ministers'' meeting next week, offers tariff reductions
on 94 per cent of ASEAN''s exports to India, compared to
69 per cent offered during the preparatory talks, said
Gopal K Pillai, head of the Indian delegation.
Tariff on palm oil is among the four highly sensitive
agricultural imports whose duties are being revised, he
said. Tariffs on refined palm oil will be reduced from
90 per cent to 60 per cent, on crude palm oil from 80
per cent to 50 per cent, on black tea from 100 per cent
to 50 per cent and on pepper from 70 per cent to 50 per
cent, he said.
The
preferential market access included 95 per cent to 100
per cent for seven ASEAN members and 85 per cent or more
for the other three members, they said in a press paper.
During
the consultation meeting, India tabled a detailed tariff
elimination for over 4,000 tariff lines, or 77 percent
of the total tariff lines and phased tariff reduction
for more than 600 ones, or 12 percent of the total.
India also watered down the list of excluded items from
the pact to 560 goods, bringing it to just about six per
cent of ASEAN''s exports, Pillai said.
India
had trimmed its list of excluded items to around 850 items
a few months ago from 1,400 last year. However, it was
still unacceptable to ASEAN as it accounted for about
30 per cent of the region''s exports to India.
Although
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said had indicated last
year
that India-ASEAN FTA negotiations could be completed by
2007, Indian officials said that this country was not
prepared to make concessions on agriculture at least for
the next five years.
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