Indian free trade agreements multiply

“India is rapidly increasing its number of trade agreements. Since February 2021, India has signed seven free trade agreements covering 10 countries, bringing its total number of signed free trade agreements to 17. India has also concluded negotiations on a trade deal with the European Union, though it has not yet been signed, and is currently negotiating a trade agreement with the United States,” reports The Doomslayer.

On the other hand, India’s government has imposed lots of protectionist tariffs on countries that it doesn’t have free trade agreements with.

India has a big trade deficit: “India consistently has a merchandise (goods) trade deficit, meaning it imports more physical goods than it exports. India imports large amounts of crude oil, machinery, and gold.” India runs major trade deficits with China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, “India runs a strong surplus in services trade,” such as call centers, IT, and business process management, “which consistently offsets a large portion of the physical goods deficit.” But not all of it.

India’s trade deficit doesn’t keep its economy from growing. India’s economy grew rapidly — by 7.8% — in the most recent quarter, and is expected to grow by about 7% this year.

The Signal reports:

“India is closing four trade negotiations inside a single half-year. The India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), along with a companion social-security pact, enters into force on 15 July 2026, after both countries completed their ratification procedures. India and the European Union jointly announced the conclusion of the India-EU Free Trade Agreement on 27 January 2026, at the 16th India-EU Summit. New Zealand and India signed their own bilateral FTA on 27 April 2026….And in February 2026, India and the United States reached an interim tariff framework, the most recent entry in a run of nine FTAs India has signed since 2021. Four separate partners, one six-month window: the natural read is that India has become a genuinely fast, confident trade negotiator.”

But not really: “Take the EU deal apart and the ‘sprint’ story gets complicated fast: those negotiations were relaunched in 2022 (PIB) and did not conclude until January 2026. That is roughly four years for one agreement, by our calculation from the two dates in that same announcement. The four deals did not all move quickly. They just happen to be finishing at the same time.”

“The single figure worth holding onto: India has signed nine FTAs since February 2021, against five in the six years from 2005 to 2011.”

Annual rabies cases have fallen by 12,000 in India.

82 percent of rural Indian households now have access to tap water, up from just 17 percent in 2019.

In India, a slightly higher percentage of women now attend college than men, which is a big reversal of the past, when far more Indian men attended college than women.

Many more people attend college in India than in neighboring Bangladesh and Pakistan. Pakistan’s college-enrollment rate is only one-third of India’s rate. Bangladesh used to be much poorer than India, but it mostly caught up with India in the 2010’s, due to steady growth in its garment export sector. Now India and Bangladesh have relatively similar living standards, with Bangladesh having a per capita income about 85% of India’s.