26/12/2006  NEW DELHI, (PTI): Hoping for a breakthrough in Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the association's summit in Kuala Lumpur next month, India has made its "most aggressive" offer to further cut down its negative list to 490.

"We have offered to cut down the negative list to 490 from 560 as a part of a new package. This is the maximum we could have done and we hope that a breakthrough would be achieved before the prime minister goes for the ASEAN summit," official sources told newsmen.

The FTA, which was to come into effect from 2007, has been delayed because of the differences over the list of items on which India has refused to cut down duties. It has already brought down the number of items in the negative list substantially from the initial 1,400.

However, the ASEAN has expressed displeasure over "India's large negative list" because some of the important members have strong interests in politically sensitive agriculture commodities like palm oil, pepper and black tea.

India's latest offer to further prune the negative list to 490 is part of a larger package that exempts it from sharp reduction in duties on products like palm oil, pepper and tea.

The package offers reduction in duties from 80 per cent to 60 per cent on refined palm oil by 2022 and from 70 per cent to 50 per cent on crude palm oil. For Indonesia and Malaysia these commodities account for bulk of their exports to India.