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India on Wednesday signed the Terms of Reference (ToR) for a preferential trade agreement (PTA) with the South African Customs Union (SACU). Both sides are expected to begin negotiations for the trade deal in a month and aim to conclude the talks within a year.
“Speed is necessary for outcomes. I am not at all advocating haste,” Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said at the signing event. “But I do firmly believe that discussions and negotiations held in a tight timeline expeditiously will give far better results than long-drawn negotiations spread over several years where you lose the thread of where you started.”
The deal is expected to cover trade in goods and will have eight chapters: Trade in goods and market access, rules of origin, customs procedures and trade facilitation, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, dispute settlement, and legal and horizontal provisions.
“As we discuss, there might be more additions and deletions,” Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal, who was also present at the ceremony, said.
The ToR for a trade deal is a formal road map that sets the boundaries, goals, scope and rules for economies before they start official negotiations. The ToR was signed by Department of Commerce Additional Secretary Yashvir Singh and Namibia’s Ministry of International Relations and Trade Executive Director Ndiitah Nghipondoka-Robiati, the chief negotiators for the PTA from the two regions.
India’s bilateral trade with the five-member SACU, comprising South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini, was $16.81 billion in 2025-26 (FY26), including exports worth $7.55 billion. Robiati emphasised that SACU looked forward to a balanced, mutually beneficial and development-oriented agreement.
Meanwhile, Goyal assured that India would not touch the issues that SACU may deem sensitive. “We would expect reciprocity and your consideration on sensitive issues on the Indian side as well,” he added.
The Indian minister outlined that the agreement could help the two sides diversify their markets and that India could also help SACU integrate into global supply chains. Both regions could collaborate in health care, and India could supply affordable medicines, Goyal said, adding that information technology was another important sector for partnership. “India can help create new talent in the SACU region.”
“Let us make a beginning in areas where we complement each other and look how we can expand in the years to come,” Goyal said.
The trade deal is increasingly important in the contemporary world of uncertainties, Agrawal said. “In today’s world of global uncertainties, especially in the arena of trade, these kind of partnerships, if done in time, can provide a very strong signal globally and also provide impetus to global trade,” he said.
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