Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India’s merchandise exports to Oman are officially targeted to grow by 50 per cent over the next three years, as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the Gulf nation came into force on June 1. The agreement aims to drive merchandise exports from the baseline of roughly $4.06 billion past the $6 billion mark, with a medium-term goal of reaching $10 billion.
Oman has offered zero-duty access on 98.08 per cent of its tariff lines, covering 99.38 per cent of India’s exports to Oman. All major labour-intensive sectors including Gems & Jewellery, textiles, leather, footwear, sports goods, plastics, furniture, agricultural products, engineering products, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and automobiles receive full tariff elimination.
India is offering tariff liberalisation on 77.79 per cent of its total tariff lines which covers 94.81 per cent of India’s imports from Oman by value. For the products of export interest to Oman and which are sensitive to India, the offer is mostly a tariff-rate quota (TRQ) based tariff liberalisation.
To safeguard its interest, sensitive products have been kept in the exclusion category by India without offering any concessions, especially agricultural products, including dairy, tea, coffee, rubber, and tobacco products; gold and silver bullion, jewellery; other labour-intensive products such as footwear, sports goods; and scrap of many base metals.
Earlier, the Finance Ministry on May 31 had issued notification on duty concessions on Omani goods under trade pact with India, which came into effect from June. India and Oman signed the CEPA) in December last year, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Muscat.
