New Delhi, Oct 16: World Bank said today the Indo-Asean Free Trade Agreement would turn out to be a futile exercise unless India makes conscious efforts to lower tariffs and remove non-tariff barriers further. "The tie up with Asean is provisional and is not much of a benefit to India," World Bank consultant Garry Pursell said on the sidelines of a workshop organised by ICRIER here.
He cited the disparity in tariff regimes in India and Singapore and said the Asian tiger was already a free-trade zone while India is ranked second in terms of high tariff zones in the world.
"India has to bring down its tariffs drastically before it signs the FTA with Asean," Pursell said.

He also said that India and other South Asian nations should opt for multilateral trade agreements instead of the unilateral and bilateral agreements.
While secretary in PMO, S Narayan, asserted that there should be a standardised tariff and India was moving towards the Asean levels, the world bank said implementation of trade reforms was slow. Bureau Report