Overview
- India now has 15 in‑force free trade agreements covering 27 countries and is negotiating or implementing several more that could extend preferential coverage to about 69 countries.
- Analysts and a new GTRI report link the expanded FTA network to sharply larger bilateral trade deficits, with deficits versus ASEAN, Japan and South Korea rising several hundred percent since the pre‑FTA period.
- Indian exporters claim low use of FTA preferences, estimated at 20–30 percent, while import‑side use into India is much higher at roughly 60–70 percent because many partners already have low MFN tariffs.
- FTAs are worsening inverted‑duty problems in sectors such as steel, chemicals, plastics, textiles and electronics by letting finished goods enter at low or zero duty while inputs face higher tariffs in India.
- The report and op‑ed call for targeted policy fixes — aligning input tariffs, simplifying rules of origin and boosting preference utilisation — to protect domestic value addition and slow offshoring to partner countries.