Request for Feedback on India-Israel FTA

India is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Israel. The 5th Round of Negotiations were held in August 2012 in New Delhi.

In this regard, Ministry of Commerce & Industry has requested for inputs from trade and industry on the following important issues as mentioned below:

India’s Priority List of Exports to Israel

Government is in the process of preparing a priority list of India’s exports to Israel. India would negotiate for getting duty concessions/eliminations on these tariff lines of export interest so that our exports to Israel get more market access and are more competitive as compared to the goods originating from the rest of the world.

The complete list of Israeli tariff lines on which duty reduction/elimination is sought is enclosed for your feedback. The attachment contains further explanation with illustration. You are requested to categorize your feedback on these tariff lines as follows:

Priority 1: Immediate complete duty elimination
Priority 2: Complete duty elimination in a phased manner
Priority 3: Marginal duty reduction to a particular level in a phased manner

Market access for Trade in Services

Israel’s Request List for India: Israel has requested for full commitments from India on market access and national treatment in various sectors/sub-sectors with respect to Mode 1 (cross-border supply), Mode 2 (consumption abroad) and Mode 3 (commercial presence).

Ministry of Commerce and Industry has invited feedback from stakeholders on whether the sectors mentioned in the enclosed list are willing to provide such market access to Israeli service providers. Israel’s Request List is enclosed for your kind perusal.

As you may be aware, “modes” are the ways of trading services, as defined in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The attachment contains further explanation. Under the GATS, commitments under market access is when a government allows foreign service suppliers to operate in its domestic market and commitment under national treatment is when a government does not discriminate against foreign service suppliers as compared to its own like service suppliers.

India’s Request List for Israel: Government is also in the process of preparing “India’s Request List” for sharing with Israel. India’s Request List would contain the services sectors/sub-sectors in which we would demand greater market access in any of the 4 modes of supply in the services sector of Israel.

You are requested to kindly provide your valuable feedback and also support it with suitable justification so that Government can take a firm negotiating stand while exchanging the request lists.

Kindly send us feedback/inputs pertaining to your line of business. Comments/inputs/feedback may kindly be e-mailed to aarushi.goyal@ficci.com latest by 28th September 2012.