Over the last one year, officials of the government of India have held nine meetings with officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to review the trade agreement signed with the grouping, but no progress has been made on any item, according to sources.
“After a lot of pressure from the government of India, they agreed for a review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA),” a source said. “Yet, after even nine rounds of review, they have not accepted terms on even one item.”
Under the original agreement, signed in 2009, India opened 71% of its tariff lines to the ASEAN countries whereas countries like Indonesia opened 41%, Vietnam 66.5%, and Thailand 67%, the source explained.
“In the last 15 years, our exports to ASEAN have doubled, but our imports have tripled,” they said. “These factors necessitated a review of the deal but we are being stonewalled.”
The review by a joint committee began in February 2024.
India had found through its investigations that there are countries in the ASEAN grouping that were receiving highly subsidised raw materials from China, processing them, and then exporting them to India, the source said.
“When we (the current government) saw this was happening, we imposed an anti-dumping duty on the originating country as well,” the source said.
The trade deal with ASEAN also allowed the dumping of steel in India, they added.
Published – June 23, 2025 09:54 pm IST
