India and Qatar to work on settling trade ties in JWG meet

NEW DELHI: India and Qatar will conduct their first Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting on trade issues this week to drive bilateral trade by identifying and removing tariff and non-tariff barriers, including regulatory difficulties, according to sources.

The action came after Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi met with his Qatari colleague Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha in February of this year, where the two committed to strengthening bilateral cooperation in areas such as trade, investment, energy, finance, and technology.

"India intends to use the JWG conference, led by senior officials from both sides, to launch initiatives to enhance the country's exports to Qatar in order to close the trade imbalance with the country.

The Commerce Department recently solicited comments from several industry sectors for the agenda to be pushed at the conference," according to a source familiar with the subject.

India's exports to Qatar have increased slightly over the previous decade, aided by the establishment of direct shipping lines linking Indian ports with Qatar, but there is still plenty of room for expansion, according to the source.

Source: India Shipping News