India And Japan Meet For Further Talks On Economic Partnership Agreement

by Mary Swire, for LawAndTax-News.com

15 April 2008

The 6th round of negotiations on the Japan-India Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) was held between April 10th and 14th at Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo.

In this round of talks, the Japanese delegation was led by Sumio Kusaka, Deputy Director-General of the Economic Affaires Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Coordinator for the Japanese Co-chairs) and other Director-General-level Co-chairs from relevant ministries, and the Indian delegation was led by Dinesh Sharma, Joint Secretary of the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry (Indian Co-chair).

Experts from relevant ministries and agencies from both sides also participated in the meetings.

During the round, the negotiations were overviewed in the plenary session, and issues such as market access in trade in goods, other issues relating to trade in goods (general rules, rules of origin, customs procedures), trade in services, investment, intellectual property, improvement of the business environment, cooperation in other areas (competition, government procurement, non-tariff measures (SPS, TBT)), and general/final provisions were discussed in the sessions, either at the working-level (Co-chair-level) or at the expert-level.

Good progress was made in all the negotiating areas during the negotiating round last week.

Regarding market access for trade in goods, technical clarifications were sought on the respective offers exchanged prior to this negotiating round.

The next round of negotiations will be held in New Delhi in mid-May, 2008.

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