NGOs urge govt not to join trade pillar of Indo-Pacific Economic Framework

As many as 32 civil society organisations and NGOs on Friday urged the government not to join in the talks of the trade pillar of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) for Prosperity, stating that it can impact India's policy space to develop critical economic sectors.

They also claimed that India has joined IPEF talks without due consideration and parliamentary scrutiny in terms of IPEF's implications for India's economic and development policy space.

In a letter to the commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal, these organisations said that the US has strategically pitched the IPEF as 'not the usual' trade agreement as it does not include market access commitments such as import duty cuts.

"This strategy has misled the Indian government into believing that the IPEF will only involve cooperation and no commitment to open up imports. On the contrary, the IPEF is actually more intrusive than Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) as it targets national policies and regulations across .