India, EU aim to complete FTA legal scrubbing in 15-20 days, says Piyush Goyal

Synopsis

Goyal will visit Spain, Belgium and Finland on July 14-15 with a delegation of business leaders as part of preparations for implementing the trade pact. He is also scheduled to meet EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic in Brussels. "We have already started marketing Indian goods and services so that we are future-ready to get the best out of the FTAs that we have finalised," Goyal said at an event organised by the Council for Leather Exports.

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NEW DELHI: India and the European Union are aiming to complete the legal scrubbing of their free trade agreement (FTA) within the next 15-20 days, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Monday, as both sides step up efforts to bring the pact into force by the first quarter of 2027.

Goyal will visit Spain, Belgium and Finland on July 14-15 with a delegation of business leaders as part of preparations for implementing the trade pact. He is also scheduled to meet EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic in Brussels.

"We have already started marketing Indian goods and services so that we are future-ready to get the best out of the FTAs that we have finalised," Goyal said at an event organised by the Council for Leather Exports.

Referring to his recent conversation with Sefcovic, Goyal said both sides discussed expediting the legal review of the agreement.

"We were discussing how we can speed up the legal scrub of the EU-India FTA so that it can move for ratification in the European Commission and Parliament. Our effort is to make the EU-India FTA operational in the first quarter of 2027. It will open the markets of 27 developed countries for Indian businesses and take the country's exports to newer heights," he said.