Efforts underway to bring a collective understanding on trade facilitation: Piyush Goyal

Goyal stated that in the work towards fair, transparent and open trading systems; broadly all countries are supporting India's leadership and effort as he hoped that elimination of trade barriers will lead to greater market access. With India conducting bilateral meetings with both the United Kingdom (UK) and the EU (European Union) at the sidelines of the event, he said that deeper engagement with both the official and ministerial levels of many countries is being looked at while negotiating FTAs.

Commenting on the UK's demands in the FTA over issues of tariffs on automobiles and scotch whisky, he said that everyone presses hard for their requests and concerns and there's hardly an issue on negotiations that aren't taking place. Terming the dialogue with the EU as "wonderful" so far, he said that the negotiations will take longer as it will involve forging consensus among all 27 countries of the conglomeration, as various aspects of the trade agreement will have to be seen with the lens of all the member nations.

Having held a bilateral meeting with the Saudi Arabian Minister of Trade, Goyal said that many GCC countries have expressed a desire to get back on the negotiating table to discuss potential agreements, with many member nations also having approached India individually with a request to enter into a bilateral agreement.