NEW DELHI: The Gulf Cooperation Council and India relaunched negotiations for a free trade agreement by signing the terms of reference for the talks on Thursday, about two decades after a first attempt stalled.
India already has a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with two GCC members, Oman and the UAE, signed last year and in 2022, respectively.
Its trade negotiations with the GCC — members of which also include Saudi Arabia — stalled following a framework agreement signed in 2004 and two rounds of talks held in 2006 and 2008.
“It is most appropriate that we now enter into a much stronger and robust trading arrangement which will enable greater free flow of goods, services, bring predictability and stability to policy, help encourage greater degree of investments and take our bilateral relations between the six-nations GCC group and India to greater heights,” India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday.
GCC-India bilateral trade was worth more than $178 billion in the 2024-25 fiscal year, accounting for more than 15 percent of India’s global trade. The region is also home to about 10 million Indians who live and work in the Gulf.
