{"id":20688,"date":"2025-10-27T10:57:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T05:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=20688"},"modified":"2025-10-29T15:27:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T09:57:27","slug":"asean-itgr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/asean-itgr\/","title":{"rendered":"ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is stonewalling the review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA), a senior official said recently.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>About ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a<\/span><b> trade deal between<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>ten member states of ASEAN and India.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was <\/span><b>signed <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">at the 7<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> ASEAN Economic Ministers-India Consultations <\/span><b>in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2009<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The agreement<\/span><b> entered into force on 1 January 2010.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The agreement <\/span><b>originated out of the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between India and ASEAN<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> created in <\/span><b>2003<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This framework agreement set the <\/span><b>basis for India and ASEAN to conclude further agreements.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>AITIGA <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">covers <\/span><b>trade in physical goods and products;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> it does <\/span><b>not apply to trade in services.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ASEAN and India signed a <\/span><b>separate ASEAN-India Trade in Services Agreement in 2014.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Along with the ASEAN-India Investment Agreement,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>three agreements <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">collectively form the <\/span><b>ASEAN-India Free Trade Area.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Eliminating Tariffs on Goods:<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under the AITIGA, ASEAN and India have c<\/span><b>ommitted to progressively eliminating duties on 76.4 percent of goods<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and to<\/span><b> liberalize tariffs on over 90 percent of goods.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Because of the uneven levels of development <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and differing economic policies <\/span><b>within ASEAN<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the agreement <\/span><b>applies two different classes of tariff rates<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> depending on whether or not they are WTO members.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Generally speaking, the agreement grants <\/span><b>less developed <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/association-of-southeast-asian-nations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ASEAN<\/a> members<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with less liberalized economies, such as Myanmar and Laos, a <\/span><b>longer timeframe to reduce their tariffs.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The agreement allows the parties to <\/span><b>maintain tariffs of four to five percent for some sensitive products.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, the agreement includes <\/span><b>unique tariff reduction provisions for India\u2019s \u201cspecial products\u201d, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which are <\/span><b>crude and refined palm oil, coffee, black tea, and pepper.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finally, parties are <\/span><b>permitted to place some tariff lines into \u201chighly sensitive lists\u201d <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to manage tariff reductions for sensitive products, as well as an \u201c<\/span><b>exclusion list\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for products excluded from the Agreement, which the parties <\/span><b>must review annually.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Other Provisions:<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition to reducing tariffs, the Agreement <\/span><b>calls on all parties to establish <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">predictable, consistent, and transparent trade<\/span><b> practices to reduce non-tariff barriers.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This includes <\/span><b>simplifying customs procedures,<\/b> <b>ensuring <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">permissible <\/span><b>non-tariff measures are transparent,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and preventing countries from instituting or maintaining non-tariff measures not in accordance with the <strong>WTO<\/strong>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Agreement also establishes a <\/span><b>Joint Committee<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> formed from representatives of the parties.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Among other responsibilities, the Joint Committee <\/span><b>reviews the implementation and operation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Agreement, considers and r<\/span><b>ecommends amendments<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and supervises and coordinates the work of sub-committees established under the Agreement.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Other provisions in the agreement include r<b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">eferences to the ASEAN-India DSM agreement for dispute resolution,<\/b> <b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">exemptions for protecting security interests<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and safeguard measures to protect against tariff cuts resulting in such significant import increases that foreign products overwhelm domestic ones.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><strong>: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.financialexpress.com\/policy\/economy-asean-delayingreview-of-trade-pactwith-india-source-3890333\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement was signed at the 7th ASEAN Economic Ministers-India Consultations in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":51685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1002,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-20688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-asean-india-trade-in-goods-agreement","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}