India sets up EFTA desk to promote trade, investment, business facilitation

India establishes EFTA desk to boost trade with European nations, facilitating investment and business opportunities, enhancing economic ties.

India is setting up a dedicated platform — EFTA (European Free Trade Association) desk — to promote trade, investment, and business facilitation between the two regions, an official statement said on Monday (February 10, 2025).

India and the four European nations EFTA bloc signed a free trade agreement (FTA) on March 10 last year to boost trade and investment ties.

The pact, officially dubbed as Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA), is expected to come into force by the end of this year.

The EFTA members are Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.

The setting up of the desk is important as under the pact, India has received an investment commitment of $100 billion in 15 years from the grouping while allowing several products such as Swiss watches, chocolates and cut and polished diamonds at lower or zero duties.

This is a first-of-its-kind pledge agreed upon in any of the trade deals signed by India so far.

It will be inaugurated by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal along with the EFTA bloc represented by Helene Budliger Artieda, Swiss State Secretary; Tomas Norvoll, State Secretary of Trade and Industry, Norway; Martin Eyjolfsson, Permanent Secretary of State, Iceland; and Dominique Hasler, Minister of External Affairs, Liechtenstein among other representatives at Bharat Mandapam on Monday.