clataffairs

Indian Prime Minister participated in the India-European Union (EU) Leaders’ Meeting. The meeting was held in a hybrid format with the participation of leaders of all the 27 EU Member States as well as the President of the European Council and the European Commission.  This is the first time that the EU hosted a meeting with India in the EU+27 format. The meeting was the initiative of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU. FREE TRADE NEGOTIATIONS India and EU decided to relaunch free trade negotiations by resuming talks that were suspended for the Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA). India and EU had launched talks for having a wide-ranging Free Trade Agreement (FTA), officially called broad-based BTIA, long ago in 2007. The BTIA was proposed to encompass trade in goods, services and investments. However, the talks stalled in 2013 over differences on market access and movement of professionals. CONNECTIVITY PARTNERSHIP Launched an ambitious and comprehensiv...

Pakistan did a U-turn on a move for limited resumption of trade with India.  A Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan rejected a decision made by a government panel to allow imports of sugar and cotton from India to control prices and overcome a shortage. Pakistan’s interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told reporters in Islamabad after the cabinet meeting that the move to permit imports from India was “deferred till Article 370 is not restored” and speaking in Urdu, he added, “till then, [imports of] cotton and sugar will not happen.” Earlier on March 31, Pakistan's new finance minister Hammad Azhar had announced that the ban on imports from India has been lifted. THE BAN Pakistan’s decision to suspend bilateral trade with India in August 2019 was primarily a fallout of India’s decision to scrap Article 370.  Pakistan called the move “illegal”, and took this trade measure as a way of showing its dissatisfaction.  However, an underlying reason for suspendi...

On 23rd March 2021, a massive cargo ship, named Ever Given, turned sideways in Egypt's Suez Canal.  The ship appeared to be stuck some 6 kilometers north of the southern mouth of the canal near the city of Suez. This blocked traffic in the crucial East-West waterway for global shipping. About 64 vessels traveling southbound were also affected.   All these vessels are stuck in transit between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. MV EVER GIVEN The vessel blocking Suez, the Ever Given was a Panama-registered container ship. It was on its way to Rotterdam in the Netherlands from China.  The 2018-built vessel, which is 400-m long and 59-m wide, got stuck due to a mishap caused by bad weather. The ship is operated by Evergreen Marine, a Taiwanese transport company. THE SUEZ CANAL It was opened in 1869.  It connects Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Sinai Peninsula from mainland Africa.  The Suez Canal provides a crucial link for oil, n...

On November 15, 15 countries solidified their participation in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).  Even as India opted to stay out after walking out of discussions last year, the new trading bloc has made it clear that the door will remain open for India to return to the negotiating table. RCEP The initiative to establish RCEP was taken by the member­-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2011. RCEP members accounted for about 30% of world output and population and 28% of world trade.  RCEP was originally being negotiated between 16 countries — ASEAN members and countries with which they have free trade agreements (FTAs), namely Australia, China, Korea, Japan, New Zealand and India. The purpose of RCEP was to make it easier for products and services of each of these countries to be available across this region.  Negotiations to chart out this deal had been on since 2013, and India was expected to be a signatory until its deci...