India's Free Trade Agreements: Provisions and Prospects with reference to Agriculture Products

Regional integration in the name of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements has now become the important tool for promoting economic and political relations among countries/ groups, these agreements may range from preferential trade agreements to free trade agreements. Out of the 15 RTAs in force 4 RTAs have provisions on services as well. So far the agricultural products are concerned there coverage is partial with limited number of products being included in the tariff reduction list. Agriculture did not find due place in the RTAs because of its sensitiveness with respect to pressure from the domestic market. This paper critically analyses the share of major trading groups, with whom India has signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), in total exports and agriculture exports of India for the period 2001- 2014. The finding shows that although in case of total exports going to the trading groups for the period under study has seen an increase in its share but the same does not hold true for share in agriculture export going from India to these groups. Share in agriculture exports in most of the cases has registered a fall. Thus this