Prelims: Current events of national and international importance
Why in News?
Recently, confirming that India and Oman will be signing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Commerce Minister said that FTA offers “immense opportunities” in a number of sectors.
FTA is an agreement between the country(s) or regional blocks to reduce or eliminate trade barriers, though mutual negotiations with a view to enhancing trade.
- India and Oman are set to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to enhance bilateral trade, investment, and market access.
- The FTA covers goods, services, and investments.
- Oman is a key partner for India in the Gulf region.
- Collaboration –Through 4 broad areas.
- Energy transition, whether its renewable sources of energy, battery storage, green hydrogen, and the whole ecosystem can be opened up.
- Infrastructure, multimodal logistics, and export warehouses.
- Food security, India helping Oman ensure food security.
- To develop start-up ecosystems.
- The startups can engage with each other, build bridges, work on deep tech or smarter ways to work on logistics software services, artificial intelligence.
- Beneficiary sectors– It includes textiles, footwear, automobiles, gems and jewellery, renewable energy, and auto components.
- Significance – India stands to gain in terms of the access Oman provides to other markets such as the Gulf Cooperation Council region, eastern Europe, central Asia, and Africa.
References
The Hindu| India-Oman to sign Free Trade Agreement
