The decision to resume negotiations was taken during a recent virtual summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and representatives from all 27 member states of the EU.

A joint statement issued after the summit said that India and EU agreed to resume negotiations for a balanced, ambitious, comprehensive and mutually beneficial trade agreement which would respond to the current challenges.

“We also agreed to the launch of negotiations on a stand-alone investment protection agreement. We also agreed to start negotiations on a separate agreement on geographical indications which could be concluded separately or integrated into the trade agreement, depending on the pace of negotiations,” the statement said.

Separately, in his address at the CII: EU-India Business Roundtable Closing Session, over the weekend, India’s minister of commerce and industry Piyush Goyal said: “Both these agreements are going to lift our economic relationship to another level with enhanced bilateral flow of trade, investments, job creation, technology transfers and innovations. These will be separate agreements and negotiated in a parallel track. We are also committed to concluding them together at an early date.”

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)