A much-anticipated trade deal between India and the U.S. is at “a very advanced stage,” India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri told CNBC Tuesday.
“I would try and look at the positive side, I’m not a soothsayer, I don’t know when trade deals will get signed, how long it takes ... but I think one [everybody] needs to chill a bit,” he told CNBC’s Amitoj Singh, as India and the EU announced a landmark trade deal.
“I’m told by the people who are in it [the negotiations] that it’s at a very advanced stage, and I’m hoping that, sooner rather than later, it will also see the light of day,” he added of the U.S. deal.
Describing the relationship between the U.S. as “very strong,” Singh Puri said India supported a multilateral trading system and this was evident in the free trade agreement deal with the European Union, announced earlier Tuesday.
That open-to-trade stance would be of benefit to Washington as trade talks continued, he added.
