‘India should set up new trade negotiating body’

As India prepares for renegotiations and new trade negotiations with complementary markets including the UK, US, and European Union, a think tank paper has recommended establishing a new body of experienced trade negotiators with a designated trade representative within the ministry of commerce.

Normally, India’s trade negotiations are done by bureaucrats from the commerce ministry either through permanent representation in Geneva at the WTO or through a need-based swift move of other civil servants from relevant ministries, Ridhika Batra, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and vice president of corporate affairs, Americas for the Mahindra group, said in a report on India-US trade relations released by the think tank.

Inadequate resources and skill set can lead to a situation where officers work reactively instead of proactively on trade deals, she said underscoring that historically, India has been notorious in leading negotiations on behalf of developing countries at WTO or at GATT.

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