First steps for a free trade agreement Switzerland – India

Switzerland and India could resume discussions on a free trade agreement at the end of the week. Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammmann has discussed with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Geneva today.

"We have established a very good basis" of discussion for the next days and the next few months, Schneider-Ammann said in a meeting with Nerandra Ways and twenty representatives of the Swiss economy. Previously the Swiss minister of the economy had entertained for over an hour with the head of the Indian government. The talks were energy and financial issues.

The economy state secretary Marie-Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch, who organized the round table with the economy, will travel to the end of the week in New Delhi. This visit "should be" a way to restart the stalled discussions on free trade, insisted Schneider-Ammann.

The Secretary of State for International Financial Matters Jacques de Watteville will go next week. Among the participants at the round table of the economy were in particular the President of the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) Patrick Odier and that of the Swiss Watch Industry Federation (FH) Jean-Daniel Pasche. Also present were the president of economiesuisse Heinz Karrer and CEO of Nestlé Paul Bulcke.

Modi was in Geneva, an intermediate stage between the trip to Qatar and the United States. For Switzerland a possible free trade agreement should incorporate provisions on the protection of intellectual property, the hope  expressed by the pharmaceutical Swiss in earlier negotiations at the end of 2013 and until today blocked.

The arrival of Modi has also increased the Indian interest in an agreement within the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).