New Delhi: India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are anticipated to launch negotiations for a free commerce settlement on November 24 with an purpose to spice up financial ties between the 2 areas, an official mentioned.

GCC is a union of six nations within the Gulf area — Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. “The FTA can be launched on November 24. GCC officers can be right here to launch the talks,” the official mentioned.

India has already carried out a free commerce pact with the UAE in Might this yr. Commerce and trade minister Piyush Goyal had, on November 16, mentioned that India can be launching a brand new free commerce settlement (FTA) subsequent week.

This could be a sort of resumption of FTA talks as earlier two rounds of negotiations held in 2006 and 2008 between India and GCC. Third spherical didn’t occur as GCC deferred its negotiations with all nations and financial teams.

India imports predominately crude oil and pure gasoline from the Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and exports pearls, valuable and semi-precious stones; metals; imitation jewelry; electrical equipment; iron and metal; and chemical compounds to those nations.

India’s exports to the GCC grew by 58.26 per cent to about USD 44 billion in 2021-22 towards USD 27.8 billion in 2020-21, in accordance with knowledge from the commerce ministry.

The share of those six nations in India’s complete exports has risen to 10.4 per cent in 2021-22 from 9.51 per cent in 2020-21. Equally, imports rose by 85.8 per cent to USD 110.73 billion in comparison with USD 59.6 billion in 2020-21, the info confirmed.

The share of GCC members in India’s complete imports rose to 18 per cent in 2021-22 from 15.5 per cent in 2020-21. Bilateral commerce has elevated to USD 154.73 billion in 2021-22 from USD 87.4 billion in 2020-21.

Apart from commerce, Gulf nations are host to a sizeable Indian inhabitants. Out of about 32 million non-resident Indians (NRIs), practically half are estimated to be working in Gulf nations. These NRIs ship a big amount of cash again residence.

In accordance with a November 2021 report of the World Financial institution, India bought USD 87 billion in overseas remittances in 2021. Of this, a sizeable portion got here from the GCC nations. Saudi Arabia was India’s fourth-largest buying and selling associate final fiscal.

From Qatar, India imports 8.5 million tonnes a yr of LNG and exports merchandise starting from cereals to meat, fish, chemical compounds and plastics. Kuwait was the twenty seventh largest buying and selling associate of India within the final fiscal, whereas the UAE was the third-largest buying and selling associate in 2021-22.

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