India, GCC agree to pursue Free Trade Agreement; resume talks: Piyush Goyal
India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have agreed to pursue a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two regions and resume the negotiations, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.
GCC is a union of six countries in the Gulf region — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. The council is the largest trading bloc of India.
India’s exports to the GCC member countries grew by 58.26 per cent to about USD 44 billion in 2021-22 against USD 27.8 billion in 2020-21, according to data from the commerce ministry.
Bilateral trade in goods has increased to USD 154.73 billion in 2021-22 from USD 87.4 billion in 2020-21. Services trade between the two regions was valued at around USD 14 billion in 2021-22,
