The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared the signing of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) with Mauritius. The decision is part of the preparatory work for External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s upcoming visit to Mauritius.
“It 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,” an official release stated.
The agreement will cover 310 export items for India including food items, beverages, electrical products, telecommunication, and a variety of other items such as sea food. The press release stated that the agreement will be signed at a “mutually convenient date.”
“Indian service providers will 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, environment, financial, tourism and travel-related, recreational, yoga, audio-visual services and transport services,” said the release.
India has been one of the largest trading partners of Mauritius and the CECPA is aimed at further cementing of trade relationship, said the official release.