India and the four-nation European Free Trade Association (EFTA) signed a $100-billion free trade agreement on Sunday. The ETFA members are Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.
As part of the trade and economic partnership agreement, which will kick in after a few months, countries such as Switzerland have offered to open up over 120 of 156 services, including audit and accounting, legal, IT and healthcare for Indian companies, with easier visa rules allowed for workers and professionals from the country.
In an interview with TOI, Swiss state secretary for economic affairs Helene Budliger Artieda said, “it is all about creating legal services.”
There is a commitment on visas, on business visas, inter-corporate visas and visas for independent professionals, she said.
“We are also allowing spouses on inter-corporate transfers, which is a first. We also have a provision on recognition of professional diplomas, although we couldn't go as far as India wanted,” she added.
Switzerland rejected 13.2 per cent of all visa applications filed by Indian nationals in 2022, Schengen Statics showed last year. The same data also showed that 106,025 applications filed by Indians received a positive response.
Indians are listed as the 30th nationality in the list of those with rejection rates.
Meanwhile, under the new pact, domestic customers will get access to high-quality Swiss products such as watches, chocolates, biscuits, and clocks at lower prices as India will phase out customs duties on these goods over a period of time.
It will take up to a year to implement the agreement due to an elaborate ratification process of these pacts in different countries.
According to an analysis of the TEPA documents by economic think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), India has allowed tariff concession to a number of products imported from Switzerland under the agreement.
