Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to travel to India on Saturday for a six-day trip, during which the two countries were expected to announce a significant breakthrough in efforts to strike a free trade agreement, according to a report Wednesday in The Hindu Business Line, a subsidiary of India's second most widely distributed English-language paper, The Hindu.
"There is going to be an important announcement on the FTA [free trade agreement]," a senior Indian official told the paper. "The idea is to take one step at a time. Both sides have come to a point where they have agreed to sign the pact on goods first followed by an agreement on trade in services and investment."
Netanyahu's visit reciprocates Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel last summer as Israel and India marked 25 years of diplomatic relations.
According to the Indian paper, the breakthrough might be a comprehensive list of tariffs suggested by the two sides in the framework of the free trade agreement.
"India is a very big market for Israel, but Israel is not a big market for India as far as business is concerned," said Sanjaya Baru, secretary general of India's Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. "Any market access negotiations should be strategic. We should see what are we getting in exchange in terms of benefits by opening up our markets which is both growing as well as huge."
The report in The Hindu comes two days after the Hindustan Times reported that the Indian government plans to purchase some $500 million worth of Spike anti-tank missiles from Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems after the Indian Defense Ministry had canceled the missile order.
The main focus of Netanyahu's visit was expected to be pushing ahead agreements between Israel's and India's defense industries. Netanyahu was to be accompanied by a delegation of 130 Israeli businesspeople representing dozens of different companies in different fields, assembled by the Trade and Labor Ministry's Israel Export Institute.
Netanyahu and Modi were also expected to sign nine collaboration agreements in the areas of energy, cybernetics and investment.
Netanyahu was also expected to pay a visit to Mumbai Chabad House along with 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg. Moshe's parents, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, were murdered by terrorists in Mumbai in 2008.
Moshe was saved by Sandra Samuel, his Indian nanny who now lives in Israel.
