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India is party to free trade agreements (FTAs) and other trade agreements with many countries worldwide, and is negotiating with many others. According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, "India is a late, and cautious, starter in concluding comprehensive preferential tariff agreements covering substantially all trade with some of its trading partners."

trade facilitation and rule-making in areas

Overview
There are different types of trade agreements that enable preferential market access between India and signatory countries or trading blocs - preferential trade agreements (PTA), free trade agreements (FTA), and Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreements (CECA) and Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPA).

A preferential trade agreement (PTA) involves two or more partners agreeing to reduce tariffs on an agreed number of tariff lines. The list of products on which the partners agree to reduce duty is called the positive list. However, in general, PTAs do not cover substantially all trade. The India Mercosur PTA is an example of a preferential trade agreement.

In free trade agreements (FTA), tariffs on items covering substantial bilateral trade are eliminated between the partner countries; however each maintains individual tariff structure for non-members. The key difference between an FTA and a PTA is that PTAs have a positive list of products on which duty is to be reduced, while an FTA uses a negative list on which duty is not reduced or eliminated. Thus, compared to a PTA, FTAs are generally more ambitious in coverage of tariff lines (products) on which duty is to be reduced. The India Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement is an example of an FTA.

Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) and Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) are agreements which consist of an integrated package on goods, services and investment, as well as trade facilitation and rule-making in areas such as intellectual property, government procurement, technical standards and sanitary and phytosanitary issues. The India Korea CEPA is one such example and it covers a broad range of other areas such trade facilitation, customs cooperation, investment, competition, intellectual property rights etc. CECA/CEPAs are more comprehensive and ambitious than FTAs in terms of coverage of areas and the type of commitments. While a traditional FTA focuses mainly on goods, a CECA/CEPA provides holistic coverage of many areas like services, investment, competition, government procurement, disputes etc. Further, a CECA/CEPA looks deeper into the regulatory aspects of trade than an FTA. Due to this, it encompasses mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) that covers the regulatory regimes of the partners. An MRA recognises different regulatory regimes of partners on the presumption that they achieve the same end objectives.

Bilateral agreements
Johnson Lifts was founded in Madras, Madras State (now Chennai, Tamil Nadu) by K.J. John in 1963. He had been working at Best & Co., a lift manufacturing company in Chennai, when he decided to start his own company. Johnson Lifts started out doing lift maintenance. The company installed its first lift at the New Woodlands Hotel in Chennai in 1966. It began manufacturing lifts in 1970. Johnson Lifts started out with a small manufacturing unit at Vyasarpadi, before moving to a larger facility in Ambattur in 1988. K.J. John died in 2002. He was succeeded as Managing Director by his son John K. John, popularly known as Jr. John, who had joined the company as a technician in 1978.

Johnson Lifts established a production facility at Poonamallee in 1997. The facility was more advanced than the previous two units as the company was able to access better technology following economic liberalisation in India in the early 1990s. Since its founding, Johnson Lifts has faced strong competition from foreign multinational brands. According to Jr. John, the company placed an emphasis on product quality and customer service to compete. He noted, "For example, our unique selling proposition was that we looked into a customer complaint the same day it was received, which was unheard of 30 years ago [the 1980s]."

The company initially sold its products in South India and expanded nationwide in 1999, benefiting from rapid urbanisation in India during the 1990s and 2000s. The company established a manufacturing plant in Nagpur, Maharashtra in 2003 to serve West and North India. Johnson Lifts began expanding overseas in 2006, establishing subsidiaries in Sri Lanka and Nepal. The company sold 5,200 lifts and recorded a revenue of inr 4190000000 in FY09.

During the 1990s, most of the company's sales were to residential apartments. The growth in commercial real estate development and public infrastructure projects during the 2000s spurred the company to expand into the escalator market. These properties typically required escalators in addition to lifts, and many developers preferred to award contracts to a single supplier for both lifts and escalators, making it difficult for Johnson Lifts to compete. The company established a joint venture with Chinese escalator manufacturer SJEC Corporation in 2009 to sell light duty commercial escalators. The escalators were initially manufactured by SJEC and sold by Johnson Lifts. The consortium won a inr 1980000000 contract to supply 122 lifts and 296 escalators for Phase I of the Chennai Metro in February 2011. It has also won contracts for the Delhi Metro, Bangalore Metro and other metro rail projects in India.

Johnson Lifts invested inr 1000000000 to open a heavy duty escalator manufacturing facility at Oragadam, near Chennai, in May 2012. It is the first escalator manufacturing facility in India. The factory was established with technology transfer from SJEC. Johnson Lifts now manufactures all its escalators at the Oragadam plant and the partnership with SJEC only involves sharing technical know-how. Johnson Lifts established a joint venture with Japanese company Toshiba Lift and Building Systems Corporation (a subsidiary of Toshiba) called Toshiba Johnson Lifts (India) Pvt. Ltd. on 27 October 2012. Johnson Lifts stated that it entered into the partnership as it lacked the technology to produce high-speed lifts. The company holds a 49% stake in the joint venture, with Toshiba holding the remaining 51% stake.

Johnson Lifts was the top lift supplier in each of the South Indian states, and had a 20% market share nationwide by 2012. The company produced about 7,000 lifts annually as of August 2012. In the 2015-16 fiscal year, the company sold 9,500 lifts, recorded revenue of inr 12000000000 and had 6,000 employees. Johnson Lifts held an 18% and 36% market share in the Indian lift and escalator markets respectively as of January 2017. The company sold over 10,000 lifts and recorded revenue of around inr 20000000000 in FY19.

Johnson Lifts invested inr 1250000000 to open a new production facility at Sengadu, Tamil Nadu in September 2019, with a capacity to produce 6,000 lifts a year. The company now has a total production capacity of 18,000 lifts a year. The company also announced that it had invested inr 130000000 to add a second production line at its Oragadam plant. The expansion increases the plant's escalator production capacity by 500 units a year, giving it a total capacity to produce 1,100 escalators annually.

On 21 September 2022, the company launched an internet of things-based wireless device named WATCH (Wireless Assessment to Troubleshoot Channelize & Host). WATCH connects the lift with a data centre and enables real-time monitoring of the lift's performance, including sending out alerts when a passenger is trapped inside.

Johnson Lifts exports its elevators and escalators to Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates. Exports accounted for about 6% of the company's revenue in the 2018-19 fiscal year.