Nitin Kumar Yadav, Mastura Ahmad Mustafa co-chair 13th AITIGA Joint Committee

The 13th ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) Joint Committee meeting, held on 7 July 2026, was co-chaired by Shri Nitin Kumar Yadav, Additional Secretary in India’s Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and Ms. Mastura Ahmad Mustafa, Deputy Secretary General (Trade) at Malaysia’s Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry.

The meeting was part of a broader round of sessions held at Vanijya Bhawan, New Delhi, from 6 to 10 July 2026, in a hybrid format, to review progress under the ongoing AITIGA Review. Delegations from all ten ASEAN member states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — took part in the discussions.

Three of the AITIGA Joint Committee’s eight Sub-Committees met on the sidelines of the main session: the Sub-Committee on Customs Procedures and Trade Facilitation, the Sub-Committee on National Treatment and Market Access, and the Sub-Committee on Rules of Origin. The Joint Committee gave strategic guidance to each and urged them to expedite finalisation of the outstanding chapters under the review.

To keep negotiations moving, the Sub-Committees were assigned time-bound deliverables and encouraged to work toward tangible outcomes within agreed timelines, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

ASEAN accounts for around 11 per cent of India’s global trade, with bilateral trade between India and the bloc reaching $128 billion in 2025-26.