Cabinet approves CECPA between Indian and Mauritius
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New Delhi, Feb 18: The Union Cabinet that Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired, has approved signing of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) between India and Mauritius. The concerned authorities from India as well as Mauritius will sign the agreement on a mutually convenient date and will come into force from first date of the following month.
The India-Mauritius CECPA will be the first trade agreement that India is to sign, with an African country. The CECPA is a limited agreement, which will cover Trade in Goods, Rules of Origin, Trade in Services, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, Dispute Settlement, Movement of Natural Persons, Telecom, Financial services, Customs Procedures and Cooperation in other Areas.
The CECPA provides for an institutional mechanism to encourage and improve trade between the India and Mauritius. The CECPA between India and Mauritius covers 310 export items for India, including food stuff and beverages, agricultural products, textile and textile articles, base metals and articles thereof, electricals and electronic item, plastics and chemicals, wood articles and others. Mauritius will benefit from preferential market access into India for its 615 products, including frozen fish, speciality sugar, biscuits, fresh fruits, juices, mineral water, beer, alcoholic drinks, soaps, bags, medical and surgical equipment, and apparel.
The CECPA will facilitate Indian service providers to have access to around 115 sub-sectors from the 11 broad service sectors such as professional services, computer related services, research and development, other business services, telecommunication, construction, distribution, education, environmental, financial, tourism and travel related, recreational, yoga, audio-visual services, and transport services.
India has offered around 95 sub-sectors from the 11 broad services sectors, including professional services, R&D, other business services, telecommunication, financial, distribution, higher education, environmental, health, tourism and travel related services, recreational services and transport services. Both sides have also agreed to negotiate an Automatic Trigger Safeguard Mechanism (ATSM) for a limited number of highly sensitive products within two years of the Signing of the Agreement.
India and Mauritius enjoy excellent bilateral relations, sustained by historic cultural affinities, frequent high-level political interactions, development cooperation, defence and maritime partnership, and people to people linkages. Mauritius is an important development partner of India. The CECPA will further cement the already deep and special relations between the India and Mauritius.