After successfully concluding a free trade agreement (FTA) with the ASEAN and sorting out all outstanding issues in the comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) negotiations with South Korea, India is now looking to wrap up negotiations for the India-Japan CEPA as soon as possible.

Commerce secretary GK Pillai is leading a delegation of officials from the department of commerce to Tokyo on October 6 for the 10th round of negotiations for a CEPA between the two countries. This could well be the conclusive round if a consensus is reached on certain unresolved issues, official sources told The Indian Express.

Being a comprehensive agreement, the Indo-Japan CEPA covers trade in goods as well as services and also charts out the modalities (or protocols) for foreign investment between the two countries. So far, issues regarding Japan’s unwillingness to lower tariffs on certain products of export interest to India as well as concerns over technical barriers to trade (TBT) and their stringent sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measure which act as non-tariff barriers to trade have been raised by India in the previous rounds.

In services, the major hurdle lies in the area of mutual recognition agreements (MRA) wherein both parties accept foreign professionals with degrees and diplomas offered in their home country. Computer-related and IT services; accounting, auditing, and book keeping services; architectural services; engineering services; medical and dental services; advertising services, and services for telecommunication and audio-visual communication are of particular interest to India in this context. If a mutually agreeable MRA is finalised in this round, it could further negotiations for trade in services substantially.

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