India, Italy for fair Indo-EU trade pact

Rome: India and Italy have discussed progress of talks on the proposed free trade agreement between New Delhi and the European Union (EU) and hope for its early conclusion, the commerce ministry said on Thursday.

In January last year, India and the EU resumed negotiations for a free trade agreement, investment protection and Geographical Indications (GI). Italy is a member of the EU. The issue came up for discussion in the meeting of Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Foreign Office Antonio Tajani here on April 12. "The ministers underlined the importance of achieving a free, balanced and fair free trade agreement and hoped that it would be concluded soon," it said.

They also agreed to the convening of the next session of the Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation (JCEC) in Rome in the last week of September. Tajani suggested the formation of a Joint Working Group in the strategic areas such as space, technology, defence and agriculture to increase cooperation. Tajani suggested strengthening the parliamentary friendship group diplomacy between the parliaments of the two countries and exploring scope for having a cyber dialogue. Goyal also emphasised on enhancing the bilateral cooperation in the field of clean energy to achieve sustainability to mitigate the negative impact of climate change.