Piyush Goyal<\/a> on Friday said New Delhi is looking towards the Middle East to diversify trade to support exporters hit by “unilateral action” taken by a country.<\/p>\n“If any country wants to enter into a free trade agreement with us, we are always ready. But I believe that any form of discrimination affects the self-confidence and self-respect of India’s 1.4 billion citizens,” Mr Goyal was quoted by ANI news agency as saying. He added that India would neither “bow down nor ever appear weak” and continue moving forward to capture new markets.<\/p>\n
The minister said a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Oman will be finalised soon, while Qatar and Saudi Arabia are willing to negotiate a pact with New Delhi. He reportedly added that FTA talks with the EU were moving fast.<\/p>\n
“Our exports this year will be higher than last year,” Mr Goyal said, adding: \u201cOur share in the global market is still very low, so what is there to fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Indian government is in consultation with all the stakeholders, including Indian missions abroad, for diversification of exports, the minister said.<\/p>\n
He said the iron ore and steel industry was looking to export 60 million tonnes of steel from the country. “This is another sector where we can become a supplier to many countries,” Mr Goyal added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndia’s intention to grow trade opportunities elsewhere makes perfect sense,\u201d Dr Wayne Winegarden, economist at the free-market think tank Pacific Research Institute, told The Independent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tariffs are causing Indian industries to be less competitive when exporting products to the US. This will harm economic growth in India as well as the profitability of the exporting industries. While these losses cannot be fully offset by expanding opportunities elsewhere, they can be reduced. Over time, as other countries decrease their trade relationship with the US, this process harms the US and reduces our geopolitical influence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sajjid Chinoy, JP Morgan\u2019s managing director, told CNBC-TV18 that at 50 per cent levies, Indian exports will lose their competitiveness. Around 1 per cent of India\u2019s GDP was directly at risk from Trump’s tariff, while the indirect impact could be even larger, he said.<\/p>\n
The research group Global Trade Research Initiative estimates that nearly two-thirds of Indian exports to the US \u2013 valued at about $60bn \u2013 now attract the highest tariff rate of 50 per cent, according to NDTV. Overall, merchandise exports to the US could fall more than 40 per cent this year, to about $50bn from $87bn in 2024.<\/p>\n
India previously criticised Mr Trump’s additional tariff, calling it \u201cunfair and unfortunate\u201d. The foreign ministry said earlier this month that New Delhi would “take all necessary steps to protect its national interests\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Goyal on Friday urged industry players to make the initiative fully independent and self-sufficient, while assuring government support to manage trade-related stress. \u201cLet this be a completely self sufficient industry led initiative. And at every point of time the important criteria should be an assessment of its outcome and whether the participants go back happy and satisfied at their investment into this conference come exhibition,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The commerce ministry is expediting the rollout of an Export Promotion Mission to support exporters and build resilient supply chains, Times of India reported. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":187084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,79,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-187083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115117279470164004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}