India-EU agreement 'truly mother of all deals': Commerce Secretary
Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal has said that the recent conclusion of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and the 27-nation European Union (EU) is 'truly a mother of all deals' as it covers together nearly one-fourth of the global economy. He said that both the EU and India offer a lot of synergies, which is important in today's world, where people are facing a lot of turmoil and challenges in global trade.
Agrawal said ‘these energies can actually come together, and that's what this FTA tries to do. I think we can not only try to make global value chains which are competitive across the world, which does serve both the Indian and the EU markets, but can also serve a large part of the world’. He said ‘we will be signing and operationalising this agreement over the next year. This agreement, our leaders have called the mother of all deals. But it is not a political statement. It is because it's truly the mother of all deals, because this agreement brings together two large economies.’
He said ‘the EU, UK, and EFTA bloc together form a $30-billion free market with more than 2 billion people, and it is growing with our aspirations’. He said this pact offers a ray of hope to world trade.
