India’s effort to wrap up bilateral trade deals with major economies after pulling out of a China-backed regional pact has hit a major stumbling block — its dairy industry.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration is hesitant to allow free access of dairy products from several countries, including the U.S., the EU and the U.K., due to strong opposition from politically-influential dairy farmers, according to people familiar with the situation.
There are disagreements over a range of goods, but India feels more strongly about milk products on worries that their imports could destroy the livelihood of millions of farmers as most of whom are small and lack the economy of scale, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the matter isn’t public.
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