Commerce ministry to increase bandwidth to negotiate FTAs

New Delhi: With a number of countries approaching India for negotiating bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) to boost economic ties, the commerce ministry is looking at ways to increase its bandwidth for undertaking these time and human resource consuming talks, a senior official said.

The commerce ministry officials at present are negotiating several FTAs with countries including the UK, Canada and European Union. "Negotiations are really time consuming and energy consuming and human resource consuming. Therefore, we are trying to increase the bandwidth within the commerce department," the government official said. Indian trade service officers are expected to be engaged more in the negotiations of free trade agreements.