Trade agreements are any contractual measures with other state or states regarding trade relationships, which can be bilateral (between two states) or multilateral (between more than two states or countries). Trade agreements are one of the approaches to diminish unilateral barriers of several types, including tariffs, non tariff barriers, and outright preventions, thus opening all parties to the remuneration of increased trade. While entering into trade agreements utmost precautions are necessary to take care of the national security and to preserve or protect local culture from foreign manipulations.

Various general features of trade agreements are (1) reciprocity, (2) a most-favoured-nation (MFN) clause, and (3) national treatment of non tariff barriers. India views Regional Trading Arrangements (RTA’s) as ‘building blocks’ towards the overall objective of trade liberalisation. Hence, it is participating in a number of RTA’s which include Free Trade Agreements (FTA’s); Preferential Trade Agreements (PTA’s); Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreements (CECA’s); etc. These agreements are entered into either bilaterally or in a regional grouping. More details are available at the link:

https://commerce.gov.in/international-trade/trade-agreements/