This story is from March 10, 2018

Optimistic about future of EU-India FTA: Manolev

In an interview to TOI, Manolev says he is optimistic about the future of the FTA with India and details efforts to strengthen the WTO. Excerpts:
Optimistic about future of EU-India FTA: Manolev
Bulgaria assumed the presidency of the council of European Union earlier this year. Aleksander Manolev, deputy minister of economy, was in India to meet Indian officials and held talks on restarting negotiations for the India-EU free trade agreement (FTA). In an interview to TOI, Manolev says he is optimistic about the future of the FTA with India and details efforts to strengthen the WTO.
Excerpts:
What are the priorities for Bulgaria after assuming the European Union presidency?
Our focus is the 3cs. These are cohesion, consensus and competitiveness. These are the instruments we have highlighted for achieving common goals. It is a citizen’s presidency. We are seeking to evolve a consensus on important topics for European citizens. The ultimate goal is promotion of a strong digital and united Europe. We are also working on strengthening the confidence in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This means Europe playing a bigger role within the WTO, implementing all the arrangements of the last WTO conference and also intensifying the FTA negotiations with other countries. This also includes India. We are in the final stage of negotiation with Japan.
Where does the FTA with India stand?
It was frozen for the last 10 years. We all see that contemporary India is all very different when the FTA negotiation process started. I believe now the intentions are different, so the opportunities are different and I believe that we will have more intense negotiations. Both sides are really willing to restart those negotiations and I am very optimistic about the future of the FTA with India. This is a joint decision of all EU countries but we, as a Bulgarian presidency at the moment, will play an active role for early restart of the negotiations.

What are your views about the impending “trade wars”?
It is really not the concept of the European Union. The single market is the biggest achievement of the EU and that’s why EU was created. We believe in open economies, we believe in free trade, free movement of goods, capital and people. We are working towards removing all barriers within our countries in the union. Now, going into this digital era, we are facing a lot of digital barriers that were not a problem at the earlier stage of digitisation. We are working on the single digital market. In terms of tariffs, EU is working towards removing all barriers for doing business within the union.
What are your views about the growing protectionist tendencies around the world?
That’s why we are working together within the WTO for really having negotiations and having agreements that remove those barriers and protectionism.
What are the sectors that you would want Indian businesses to invest in Bulgaria?
We have seen very good examples of investment both in India and Indian companies in Bulgaria. We have many Indian investors in Bulgaria and these are successful investments. As a member of the EU, we offer a very favourable taxation system, the most favourable in Europe with 10% corporate tax and 10% flat rate tax on personal income. We have comparatively low price of resources. We are attracting a lot of investors.
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