India to implement 2-3 major FTAs within six months: Goyal

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said India will implement at least two to three free trade agreements within six months and several more in 2027. He highlighted progress on nine FTAs and credited energy diversification for ensuring stable supplies during the West Asia crisis

New Delhi: India will implement at leat 2-3 free trade agreements (FTAs) over the next six months, while another 3-4 such pacts are expected to come into force in 2027, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.

He said that in the last three-and-a-half years, India has finalised nine FTAs including with Mauritius, New Zealand, the UAE, Australia, Oman, EFTA bloc, the UK, European Union and the US.

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Trade deals with Mauritius, the UAE, Australia, Oman, and EFTA bloc have already been implemented. Separate deals with the UK and New Zealand have been signed.

“On the 1st of June, the Oman-FTA came into effect. In the coming six months, you will see at least two or three more very substantive free trade agreements coming into effect.

“Over the next year, you will see us executing at least another three or four significant free trade agreements and the coming into effect of all the nine free trade agreements over the next nine to ten months,” Goyal said.

He also urged industry to invest long-term capital as the early capital will obviously get the best of returns. The minister was speaking virtually at the Citi India Conference 2026 in Mumbai.

Talking about the West Asia crisis, he said in the field of energy, the world has seen how India navigated the global crisis over the last few months.

When the world is facing severe inflation, India has been able to moderate it, he said. “When the world feared a crisis, given our independence on the Gulf and the energy flowing from the Gulf passing through the Strait of Hormuz and also our major supplies coming from the Gulf, some of which have been badly affected and damaged during this West Asia crisis, India having already initiated the process of diversification of energy sources was quickly able to meet the needs of our countrymen so that through this crisis, we have been able to ensure uninterrupted supplies whether it is petrol and diesel, or aviation fuel, whether it’s LNG to the factories, LPG to the domestic consumers,” he added.

India, he said, has been able to ensure modest prices.The country continues to ensure availability of fertilizer to farmers, the minister said.