India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal (center), India's Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar (right), and India's Minister for State and Skill Development Rajeev Chandrasekhar (left), address the media during a press conference on the EU-India Trade and Technology Council at EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, May 16, 2023. (PHOTO / AP)

NEW DELHI - India and a trade group of four European nations signed an economic agreement on Sunday aimed at increasing trade and investment, capping nearly 16 years of negotiations.

The deal is a binding agreement for the European Free Trade Association - Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein - to invest $100 billion over 15 years in the fast-growing market of 1.4 billion people, said Piyush Goyal, India's union trade minister.

India in the last two years has signed trade agreements with Australia and the United Arab Emirates

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"It is a modern trade agreement, fair, equitable and win-win for all five countries," Goyal told a press conference.

The deal is the result of 21 rounds of negotiation, said the head of Swiss Economic Affairs, Guy Parmelin, calling India a market of immense opportunities for trade and investment.

India in the last two years has signed trade agreements with Australia and the United Arab Emirates, and officials say a deal with Britain is in the final stages, all part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's goal of achieving $1 trillion in annual exports by 2030.

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The European group, formed in 1960 as a counterweight to the European Union, is the world's 10th-largest goods trader and the fifth-largest in services. It has signed around 30 trade agreements with 40 countries and territories outside the EU.