ABSTRACT
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) came into effect on January 1, 2010 with respect to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. For the remaining ASEAN members, it is expected to come into force by 2016 after the countries complete their internal requirements. As has been mutually agreed, the tariff liberalization under the India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) would gradually cover 75 per cent of the two-way trade between India and ASEAN countries starting from January 2010. The schedule of tariff reduction commitments undertaken by the AIFTA members varies significantly among them. For example, India’s commitments to the Philippines are quite different from her commitments to the rest of the ASEAN countries. As the smaller ASEAN members also complete the FTA implementation on their part, the imports from Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore continues to be in the same products.
