At a press conference in The Hague, Piyush Goyal said: “I can see Chile’s quite ripe for conclusion; Canada is making very good progress. We have just started SACU negotiations, so it may take some time (for conclusion).”
He was in the Netherlands on a two-day official visit and was accompanying a business delegation.
India is nearing an FTA with Chile, while talks with Canada are progressing and SACU negotiations have begun, Piyush Goyal said.
India also seeks expanded trade ties with Mercosur and other partners.
Talks with GCC and Israel remain slow amid regional tensions, while US negotiations continue.
India has developed manuals to strengthen institutional capacity for handling trade negotiations.
India and SACU signed terms of reference (ToR) in August to formally begin negotiations towards a preferential trade agreement (PTA). SACU comprises Botswana, Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa.
On South America, Goyal expressed hope that continuity in Brazil’s government after the election would help accelerate talks to expand India’s PTA with the Mercosur bloc. Mercosur comprises Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay, the Indian media reported.
The India-Mercosur PTA came into effect on June 1, 2009, and provides preferential tariff concessions on 450 tariff lines, or product categories, by India and 452 tariff lines by Mercosur. Both sides are now looking to widen the pact.
Goyal further said that negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Israel are slow due to the West Asia crisis and may take time, though India is ready to speed them up. The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and was established in 1981 as a political, economic and security grouping. India already has trade pacts with the UAE and Oman.
For Eurasia, he said the proposed FTA covered only goods and did not include services, so India was still assessing the benefits of entering into it. India and the five-nation Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) signed ToR on August 20, 2025, to formally start talks, and the first round of negotiations was held in November 2025.
The Indian minister also said Ecuador wanted an FTA, Egypt had invited India to discuss possible cooperation, and other African countries had approached India on possible agreements with Africa, the African Union or through sectoral FTAs.
On the US, Goyal said a trade pact would give India a comparative advantage over other countries and preferential access. India and the US announced in February the finalisation of the framework for the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement (BTA), but changes in the US tariff landscape have led to further negotiations on the pact.
Asked about capacity building for handling multiple negotiations, Goyal said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had focused on ensuring that the learning from trade negotiations did not remain a one-time exercise. Over the past three years, India has prepared manuals as standard operating procedure guides for organised FTA negotiations, and each agreement is documented for future reference and to guide officials, he said.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (SG)
