India and Oman have signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) granting India near-universal no-duty access to the Omani market and marking New Delhi’s second freetrade agreement (FTA) with a Gulf nation after the UAE, India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in a post on X.

Why it matters: The FTA marks an important shift in New Delhi’s otherwise reluctant approach toward freetrade agreements, Middle East expert and director at the India-based Centre for Studies of Plural Societies Omair Anas told EnterpriseAM. Given India’s growing export economy, “the US tariff war has created a favorable condition for India to look beyond big markets,” he added.

In numbers-

Under the CEPA, Oman will provide zero-duty access on 98% of its tariff lines, covering 99.38% of India’s exports to Oman by value, according to India’s Commerce Ministry.

In turn, India will liberalize tariffs on 77.8% of its tariff lines, covering 94.8% of imports from Oman by value, largely through tariff-rate quotas to protect sensitive sectors.

Bilateral trade between India and Oman stood at USD 10.61 bn in FY 2025, up from USD 8.94 bn in FY 2024.

The details-

What’s in, out: The agreement provides full tariff elimination for Indian exports across labor-intensive and industrial sectors, including gems and jewelry, textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, sports goods, plastics, furniture, agricultural products, engineering goods, pharma, medical devices, and automobiles. India has excluded several sensitive products from tariff concessions.

Indian goods were already entering Oman at low average tariffs of around 5%, limiting the incremental boost from duty cuts alone, Ajay Srivastava, founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative, told EnterpriseAM. Oman’s small domestic market also constrains the scale of export growth, he said, making a sharp jump in shipments unlikely.

The agreement’s greater value lies in strengthening India’s role in Oman’s logistics hubs, economic zones, and regional re-export networks, rather than in headline tariff reductions alone, Srivastava noted.

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