Piyush Goyal should be 'prioritising strengthening' trade relations with partner countries: Congress

Senior leader Anand Sharma said Goyal has forgotten that Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto was the chief guest for the 2025 Republic Day Parade.

New Delhi: Congress on Friday found fault with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal for calling India-ASEAN trade agreements “silly” and ASEAN countries “B team of China”, saying he should be “prioritising strengthening” trade relations with partner countries while “bending backwards to negotiate” a “suboptimal” trade agreement with the United States on their terms.

Senior leader Anand Sharma, a former Commerce Minister, said Goyal’s labelling of the trade agreement and ASEAN countries were “unwarranted, ill-advised and unfortunate” and “irresponsible and insulting”.

He said Goyal has forgotten that Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto was the chief guest for the 2025 Republic Day Parade.

He said the trade with ASEAN countries includes essential imports like iron ore and coal from Indonesia, palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia, oil-petroleum products from Brunei Dar-es-Salam and Malaysia and pulses from Myanmar.

“Piyush Goyal needs to be reminded of the fundamental rule of trade: No country can export what it does not produce nor import what it does not need…In an interconnected and interdependent world partnerships are the way forward and not exclusion and isolation,” he said.

Goyal should be “prioritising strengthening trade relations with partner countries and not insulting them while bending backwards to negotiate a suboptimal trade agreement with the US on its terms,” he said recalling that India and ASEAN countries are engaged for over three decades in a “multi-faceted relationship, which is mutually rewarding and important”.

It is an integral part of the Look East policy to deepen and diversify New Delhi’s relations with a region that is economically vibrant and of enormous geo-strategic importance for engagement with the Asia-Pacific region, he said adding, successive Indian governments have consciously pursued this policy and elevated India-ASEAN relations to a strategic partnership.

Emphasising that India is also a member of East Asia Summit (EAS) of ASEAN + six (Japan, India, South Korea, China, Australia and New Zealand) while Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia are strategic partner countries, he said Goyal’s statement calling trade agreement “silly” and labelling these counties as “B team of China” is “irresponsible and insulting”.

The Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) with ASEAN and trade agreements with Japan and South Korea were aimed at promoting Investments and trade in goods and services and they were “diligently negotiated” considering India's interests and “inbuilt checks and review mechanisms”, he said.

It needs to be mentioned that ASEAN is India's 4th largest trading partner accounting for over 11 per cent of India's total global trade with bilateral trade at Rs 10,39,350 crore ($120 billion) and accounts for over 11 per cent of India's exports. The FDI inflows from ASEAN to India account for over 18 per cent of total FDI inflows since 2000, the Congress leader added.