Addressing the media after the first India-EU Trade and Technology Council meeting in Brussels, he also said that India has to keep tariffs high on many products at times to compete with certain geographies which are “very non-transparent” and the developed countries are the “unintended consequence of the high tariffs”.
“The CBAM is a mechanism that the European Union has proposed and we remain engaged with the European Union. I’m sure that the intention is not to create a barrier to trade but to find a way forward,” Goyal said.
The mechanism, which is due to kick in from October, will impact India’s steel and aluminium exports.
“We have a long time ahead of us within which we’ll be working together to find the right solutions to this,” he said.
On the issue of tariffs, Goyal said that
India’s tariffs very often are misconstrued to be high on most items of raw materials or intermediates.
Emphasising on India’s ability to compete with certain geographies which are “very non transparent”, Goyal said: “We need to keep our tariffs high on many products at times. Developed Countries are the unintended consequence of the high tariffs, and which is why we are engaged in free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union”.
The tariffs, he said, are generally very low on duty on many items of technology, many items which are helping the Indian economy grow and India has kept the duties very low, the actual applied rates are much lower than what was agreed to at the WTO as bound rates.
He said the FTA will also open the doors of the European Union marketplace for Indian goods of high quality at very competitive prices, which will be good for consumers in European Union.