The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the signing of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) between India and Mauritius on February 17, 2021.
This will be the first trade agreement to be signed by India with an African country. The Agreement is a limited agreement, which will cover trade in Goods, Trade in Services, Telecom, Rules of Origin, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Dispute Settlement, Financial services, Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, Movement of Natural Persons, Customs Procedures and Cooperation in other Areas.
Benefits
• The India-Mauritius CECPA will provide an institutional mechanism to boost trade between the two countries.
• The CECPA will cover 310 export items for India, including food and beverages (80 lines), base metals and articles thereof (32 lines), textile and textile articles (27 lines), agricultural products (25 lines), plastics and chemicals (20 lines), wood and articles thereof (15 lines), electricals and electronic items (13 lines) and others.
• On the other hand, Mauritius will get preferential market access into India for its 615 products, including specialty sugar, mineral water, frozen fish, fresh fruits, juices, biscuits, alcoholic drinks, beer, apparel, soaps, bags and medical and surgical equipment.
• The Indian service providers will also get access to around 115 sub-sectors from the 11 broad service sectors including education, environmental, financial, tourism & travel-related, telecommunication, computer-related services, professional services, construction, distribution, research & development, other business services, recreational, yoga, transport services and audio-visual services.
• India has offered about 95 sub-sectors from 11 broad services sectors including higher education, environmental, health, telecommunication, financial, professional services, R&D, other business services, distribution, recreational services, tourism and travel-related services and transport services.
• India and Mauritius have also agreed to negotiate an Automatic Trigger Safeguard Mechanism (ATSM) for some highly sensitive products within two years of the signing of the agreement.
When will the CECPA agreement be signed?
The CECPA agreement will be signed by the two countries on a mutually convenient date and will come into force from the 1st date of the following month. The agreement will further cement the already deep bilateral relations between the two nations.
Background
India and Mauritius enjoy special bilateral relations due to frequent high-level political interactions, historic cultural affinities, defence and maritime partnership, development cooperation and people-to-people linkages.
India-Mauritius Relations |
| • Mauritius is an important development partner of India. In 2016, the Government of India had extended a ‘Special Economic Package’ worth USD 353 million to Mauritius. • The new Supreme Court building project is one of the five projects being implemented under the package. It was jointly inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi and Mauritius PM Pravind Jugnauth in July 2020. • In October 2019, PM Modi and the Mauritius PM had also jointly inaugurated Phase -I of the Metro Express Project and the 100-bed state-of-the-art ENT hospital project in Mauritius, which was also built under the special economic package. • India has been among the largest trading partners of Mauritius since 2005. India has also been one of the largest exporters of goods and services to Mauritius. • As per International Trade Centre (ITC), the main import partners of Mauritius in 2019 were China (16.69%), India (13.85%), South Africa (8.07%) and UAE (7.28%). • The bilateral trade between the two nations has registered a growth of 233% from USD 206.76 million in FY 2005-06 to USD 690.02 million in FY 2019-20. • India’s exports to Mauritius surged 232% from USD 199.43 million in FY 2005-06 to USD 662.13 million in FY 2019-20, while India’s imports from Mauritius increased 280% from USD7.33 million in fy 2005-06 to USD 27.89 million in FY 2019-20. |
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