Neeraj Bhardwaj asked: What are the prospects of India’s entry into the Customs Union?

P. Stobdan replies: India is not a member of the CIS, so it can’t join the Customs Union (CU).

However, India and the CU (Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan) will hold talks for a free trade agreement (FTA plus) in June this year. The June meeting will decide on the preliminary spadework into all the aspects of an FTA plus or the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) that aims to cover trade in goods, service, investment and movement of labour. The terms of reference for the joint study group, composition of the joint study group and fixing the time frames for the submission of report by the joint study group too will be decided.