1. Mauritius and India signed a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) on 22 February 2021, during the visit of the External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. It came into force on 1 April 2021. The India-Mauritius CECPA is the first trade agreement signed by India with an African country.

2. CECPA will cover Trade in Goods, Rules of Origin, Trade in Services, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, Dispute Settlement, Movement of Natural Persons, Telecom, Financial Services, Customs Procedures and cooperation in other areas. The CECPA contains 8 chapters and 16 annexes, including Trade in Goods, Rules of origin, Sanitary and phytosanitary measures, Technical barriers to Trade, Trade in services and Dispute Settlement.

3. Mauritius will benefit preferential market access into India on a list of 615 products as follows:

• Duty free access on 376 products

• Reduced duties on 127 products

• Tariff Rate Quotas on 112 products, including, inter-alia:

• 40,000 tons of special sugar at 10% duty compared to 100% applicable to import from all sources

• 2 million litres of beer at 25% duty, compared to 150% duty

• 1.5 million liters of rum at 50% duty compared to existing duty of 150%

• 5000 liters of fruit wine at 50% duty compared to duty of 150%

• 7.5 million pieces of garments at zero duty

• 7000 tons of canned tuna at zero duty

• Pasta

• Medical devices

• Cut flowers

• Tropical fruits like Pineapples and litchies

• Vanilla

4. Mauritius will provide preferential access to India on 310 products, with Tariff Rate Quotas on 88 products such as spices, tea, plastic articles, wooden furniture, parts of motor vehicles, amongst others. Both Parties also agreed to pursue negotiations after the coming into force of the Agreement to extend preferential market access on a list of products of interest to each Party.

5. Indian service providers will have access to around 115 sub-sectors from the 11 broad service sectors such as professional services, computer-related services, research & development, other business services, telecommunication, construction, distribution, education, environmental, financial, tourism & travel-related, recreational, yoga, audio-visual services, and transport services.

6. India has offered to Mauritius around 95 sub-sectors from 11 broad services sectors, including professional services, R&D, other business services, telecommunication, financial, distribution, higher education, environmental, health, tourism and travel-related services, recreational services and transport services.

7. Both India and Mauritius have agreed to negotiate an Automatic Trigger Safeguard Mechanism (ATSM) for a limited number of highly sensitive products within two years of the Signing of the Agreement.

8. The chapter on Economic Cooperation provides a framework for cooperation in 25 key areas including manufacturing, pharmaceutical, ICT, financial sector, blue Economy, SME development and joint strategies for investment in Africa. Mauritius and India have committed to conclude consultations on the Economic Cooperation chapter within two years of the entry into force of the Agreement after which it will be incorporated therein.

9. To benefit from the Agreement, potential importers and exporters will be required to meet the rules of origin requirements and to submit the certificate of origin or origin declaration.

10. The India-Mauritius-CECPA Agreement can be accessed below:

cecpa text signed version (pdf)

Background:

• India and Mauritius enjoy excellent bilateral relations, which are based on historic & cultural affinities, frequent high-level political interactions, development cooperation, defence and maritime partnership, and people to people linkages.

• Mauritius is an important development partner of India. Government of India, in May 2016, agreed to provide a Special Economic Package (SEP) of USD 353 million for the execution of five priority projects of Government of Mauritius, namely (i) Metro Express Project – USD 275 million; (ii) Supreme Court Building – USD 30 million; (iii) New ENT Hospital – USD 14 million; (iv) Social Housing – USD 20 million; (v) Supply of digital tablets to primary school children – USD 14 million. Out of these projects, the first phase and phase-2A of Metro Express, the ENT Hospital, supply of e-tablets and construction of Supreme Court building have been completed. Other projects are nearing completion.

• Over the past forty years, India has extended several Lines of Credit to Mauritius and offered several grant projects to assist in the development of its infrastructure, human resource, skills development, capacity building, project appraisal, etc. In March 2015, a new Line of Credit of USD 500 million for civilian infrastructure projects was announced by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi during his visit to Mauritius.

• Since 2005, India has been among the largest trading partners of Mauritius, and has been one of the largest exporters of goods and services to Mauritius. According to the Statistics Mauritius, in 2020, the main import partners of Mauritius were China (16.6%), United Arab Emirates (12.3%), India (9.5%), South Africa (7.7%) and France (7.2%). The bilateral trade between India and Mauritius has registered a growth of 233% from USD 206.76 million in Financial Year (FY) 2005-06 to USD 690.02 million in FY 2019-20. India’s exports to Mauritius surged 232% from USD 199.43 million in FY 2005-06 to USD 662.13 million in FY 2019-20, while India’s imports from Mauritius increased 280% from USD7.33 million in 2005-06 to USD 27.89 million in FY 2019-20.

• The India-Mauritius CECPA will further cement the deep and special relations between the two countries.