PolicyTrade
Goyal takes trade deals to the states to help farmers and small firms export
The Commerce Department is running outreach with state governments so that MSMEs, farmers and small businesses can use India's free trade agreements, the minister said.
Key points
- The Commerce Department is holding FTA outreach with state governments for exporters.
- Piyush Goyal praised Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant for joining an outreach event in Goa.
- India now has nine FTAs covering 38 countries, the commerce ministry says.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday that the government is taking India’s free trade agreements to the states, with outreach programmes meant to help farmers, workers, women, young people, MSMEs and small businesses find new export markets.
The Department of Commerce is running the initiatives with state governments, Goyal said in a social media post. The aim, he wrote, is “translating trade partnerships into meaningful opportunities for people across India”.
“The multiple FTAs concluded in recent years have opened immense opportunities for our exporters,” he said.
Goyal thanked Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant for taking part in an outreach event in the state and for encouraging local businesses to look at overseas markets. More such programmes will be held across the country so that each state can tap its export potential, he said.
India has nine free trade agreements covering 38 countries, according to the commerce ministry. The list has grown quickly: deals with Mauritius in 2021 and the UAE in May 2022, an agreement with Australia in force since December 2022, the EFTA pact that took effect on 1 October 2025, the UK agreement signed in July 2025 and the Oman agreement of December 2025. The New Zealand agreement came into force on Tuesday, 20 October, and a deal with the European Union was announced in January this year.
The outreach is an attempt to make sure those agreements reach businesses beyond the large exporters to small producers in the states.