Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India is running the most consequential trade play in its modern history on three tracks at once, and the calendar is tightening. Britain’s Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is already live, having moved more than $140 million of zero-duty exports on its very first day. The India–European Union agreement, the larger prize, is in final legal scrubbing that officials say is a week or two from done. And in Washington, a first-phase India–United States pact is stuck at the “last 1%” of legal text, with an interim tariff arrangement counting down to a late-July expiry now roughly six days away.
Each track is at a different stage, and the difference is instructive. The UK deal is the proof of concept: from July 15 it removed the 12% British duty on Indian apparel at a stroke, and day-one consignments spanning textiles, electronics, pharmaceuticals and gems and jewellery flew out from more than 20 locations. The EU deal, concluded in principle in January, is the heavyweight — a market of some 450 million consumers — now in the unglamorous but decisive phase of legal vetting before signature. The US track is the tightest on time, if narrowest in gap: a temporary arrangement adding a 10% levy is set to lapse around July 24, when rates would revert to standard levels.
Britain shows what a live deal looks like on day one. The task now is to convert a second and a third from framework into force — without trading away the terms.
On the US track, the sticking points are narrow but real. New Delhi wants any residual duty pitched no higher than competitors such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia, while Washington seeks firmer assurances on labour standards in textiles, seafood and low-cost manufacturing. India’s Commerce Secretary has said the framework is ready and talks are progressing well, while declining to fix a signing date — a sign New Delhi will negotiate for the right terms rather than to a deadline, drawing confidence from its widening deal book.
The constructive read is that access is only the invitation; the order book is the work. Britain live, Europe near and America pending would hand Indian exporters a runway few economies can match — but the gains show up only when firms operationalise them. The way forward runs through unglamorous plumbing: fast origin certification, mutual recognition of standards and trade finance that reaches mid-sized firms, so a day-one headline in London becomes a full order book in Tiruppur, Surat and Visakhapatnam.
