NEW DELHI — India and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council signed terms of reference Thursday to restart negotiations for a long-delayed trade pact, taking the first formal step toward an India-GCC FTA after years of stop-start engagement. The document sets the scope and ground rules for talks that officials say could deepen market access and investment links across a corridor that traded about $178.6 billion in fiscal 2024-25, Feb. 5, 2026.
India-GCC FTA reboot: what was signed
The signing covers “terms of reference” — the playbook that typically lays out how negotiators will structure rounds, what chapters will be discussed and how differences will be handled. India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal presided over the ceremony, with the GCC represented by its negotiating team, according to reports including coverage of the ToR signing.
In a separate account from the Gulf region, Goyal described the move as a “momentous day,” underscoring that the ToR is meant to “lay the foundation” for the eventual agreement, Zawya reported.
Why the India-GCC FTA matters for a $178.6B corridor
India’s trade with the GCC — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain — has grown into a major commercial channel, anchored by energy flows and a broad basket of Indian exports. India-GCC bilateral trade totaled $178.56 billion in fiscal 2024-25, with India exporting $56.87 billion and importing $121.68 billion, according to the Embassy of India in Riyadh’s India-GCC relations brief.
Supporters of an India-GCC FTA say the scale of that relationship makes a formal framework worth the effort: lower transaction costs, clearer rules and better predictability for companies operating across ports, refineries, industrial zones and fast-growing consumer markets.
From stalled rounds to a fresh mandate
The renewed push follows a long period of drift. India and the GCC explored a broader deal years ago, but talks repeatedly lost momentum amid shifting priorities and negotiating bandwidth on both sides.
In 2021, India was already weighing whether to revive the track, after outreach from Gulf partners and internal assessments of export opportunities, the Economic Times reported in an earlier report on reconsidering the negotiations.
In late 2022, India and the GCC publicly signaled a return to the table, with the trade minister saying the sides had agreed to resume discussions, Reuters reported. Thursday’s ToR signing converts that intent into an agreed negotiating framework — a procedural step that trade officials often view as necessary before text-based bargaining can begin in earnest.
What to watch next
Scope and sequencing: Whether the India-GCC FTA starts with goods and rules-of-origin first, or runs goods and services tracks in parallel.
Sensitive sectors: How India manages domestic concerns while seeking wider access for labor-intensive exports and services.
Timeline discipline: Whether both sides set early milestones for rounds, interim deliverables and political check-ins to prevent another stall.
For now, the ToR does not guarantee an endgame — but it does restart the machinery. If negotiators keep pace, India-GCC FTA talks could become one of India’s most consequential regional trade efforts, given the size of the Gulf market, the strategic nature of energy ties and the momentum building around cross-border investment.
