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China's BRICS trade pact proposal stokes fears of flood of Chinese imports

BRICS nations India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa have shown a lack of enthusiasm towards China's proposal to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), fearing it could lead to a surge in imports of Chinese goods and in turn, hurt local manufacturing.

Beijing is proposing the BRICS FTA to bolster trade ties within the grouping through binding commitments on eliminating tariffs, reported The Hindu of Chennai.

The development comes ahead of the today's BRICS Trade Ministers Meeting and the first BRICS Trade Fair being held from October 12 to 14, both of which will be both in Delhi, as well as the Eighth BRICS Summit to be held in Goa on October 15-16. India is hosting these events as it currently holds the BRICS chairmanship.

Official sources said although China had recently "informally sounded out other BRICS members regarding the need to take up the FTA proposal during the Trade Ministers Meeting, there were no takers for it".

There was also no interest to start negotiations on a separate BRICS Investment (protection & promotion) Treaty.

Discussions between the trade ministers will now be one with "low ambition" as none of the countries has shown willingness to take up anything "major" this time, the sources said. Therefore, there will only be a framework cooperation agreement on matters related to small and medium enterprises, services sector and intellectual property rights (IPR).

BRICS members will also consider evolving mechanisms for single window clearance as well as to speedily resolve non-tariff barriers that are negatively impacting trade.

While Russia and South Africa did not respond to the BRICS FTA proposal, Brazil pointed out that it participates in FTA negotiations as part of the "Mercosur", a trading bloc and customs union of Latin American nations, and declined to take up the FTA proposal, the sources said.

India said it is already participating in negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a proposed mega-regional FTA between the 16 Asia-Pacific nations including India and China.