New Delhi, Feb 2 : India has launched Free Trade Agreement negotiations with the UAE, Australia, UK, the EU, Canada, and the GCC bloc of countries is also keen to have an FTA with India, said Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal in the Lok Sabha. In answer to questions in the Lok Sabha, the Minister also said, quoting PM Modi, that the Covid pandemic has provided a silver lining to India with the geopolitical shift in the world, and it is the time for India to capture newer markets. He also said it was good that India had not joined the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement, and that farmers, dairy owners, and the MSME sector are very thankful to the government for that. “The country is moving towards export-led growth, and we are supporting MSMEs in that,” the minister said. “There has been a geopolitical shift in the post-Covid world, and we are also those who are part of it. This gives an opportunity to India to capture newer markets,” he said, and added that PM Modi had said that with the disruption in the global supply chains it was time for India to capture newer markets. He said the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme will held make India the preferred supplier of manufactured goods in the world. On the relaunching of the India-EU free trade talks, he said that India had not walked out of it, but the discussions had got stalled after 12-13 rounds. “And with relentless pursuit of diplomatic engagement, we managed to relaunch the talks under the Portugal presidency,” he said, referring to the India-EU Leaders summit at Porta, Portugal, last year, that saw relaunching of the India-EU FTA talks. He said that post-Brexit, India has launched new FTA talks with the UK. On India not joining the China-led RCEP, he said that “the MSME sector and all others in one voice have thanked the Prime Minister for not subjecting the Indian industry from a geography that does not have a transparent economic policy”—in direct reference to China. He said that India already has an FTA with South Korea, and the ASEAN bloc. “The RCEP would have landed us in an FTA with one country (China) that does not lend us to opening our tariff trade borders,” he said, and added: “I am amazed as to why we entered into it in 2012 in the first place”, targeting the previous Congress government which had launched the RCEP negotiations.(UNI)