India inks IPEF’s pacts on clean & fair economy
New Delhi: India on Sunday signed the 14-member IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity) bloc’s agreements on a clean and fair economy aimed to enhance cooperation in these areas.
The pacts would help facilitate development, access, and deployment of clean energy and climate-friendly technologies; catalyse investment and strengthen measures for anti-corruption, tax transparency etc. and improve business environment, the commerce ministry said in a statement.
In June in Singapore, 13 IPEF bloc members signed these agreements, while India said it would ink the deals after getting domestic approval.
“India signed and exchanged the first-of-its-kind agreements focused on Clean Economy, Fair Economy, and the IPEF Overarching arrangement under IPEF for prosperity, on September 21 at Delaware, USA, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is on 3-day visit to the US for the Quad Summit,” it said. The agreement on clean economy intends to accelerate efforts of IPEF partners towards energy security, greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, developing innovative ways of reducing dependence on fossil fuel energy, promoting technical cooperation, capacity building, besides collaborating to facilitate development, access, and deployment of clean energy and climate-friendly technologies.
It will also facilitate investments, project financing including concessional financing, joint collaborative projects, workforce development and technical assistance for industries.
“These activities will be undertaken through joint collaborative actions such as Cooperative Work Programmes, the IPEF Catalytic Capital Fund, the IPEF Accelerator,” it said.
Further, the agreement on fair economy intends to create a more transparent and predictable business environment, which can spur greater trade and investment in the markets of member countries; enhance efforts to prevent and combat corruption by strengthening anti-corruption frameworks, support efforts to improve tax transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes between competent authorities.
“It focuses on enhancing information sharing among partners, facilitating asset recovery, and strengthening cross-border investigations and prosecutions. This will also support India’s efforts in fighting corruption, money laundering, and terror financing,” the ministry said. India has also signed an overarching IPEF agreement, which is an administrative pact to set up an oversight ministerial-level mechanism.
