Committed to strengthening the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA) process through concessions, India has announced to extend tariff concession on 3142 items to Bangladesh, China, Lao PDR, Republic of Korea, and Sri Lanka. The move came after 4th Round of negotiations under APTA, earlier known as the Bangkok Agreement, became effective from July 1, 2018. This was announced by the commerce ministry in a statement.
APTA is a Preferential Trade Agreement under which, the basket of items as well as extent of tariff concessions are enlarged during the trade negotiation rounds which are launched from time to time.
Under the special and differential treatment provisions of APTA, the Least Develop countries (LDC) among member nations will get greater concessions on 1,249 items with an average Margin of Preference (MoP) of 81 per cent on these items.
Ministers of the member countries signed the fourth round of trade negotiations, formally concluded during the meeting of the APTA Ministerial Council held in Bangkok on January 13, 2017.
APTA, which has been in place since 1975, is an initiative under the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (UN ESCAP) for trade expansion through exchange of tariff concessions among developing country members of the Asia Pacific Region.
