India-EU FTA Binds a Market of 2 Billion People: Piyush Goyal

The correct answer is 2 billion people. Addressing the India-Belgium High-Level Dialogue in Mumbai, the Commerce and Industry Minister said the India-EU Free Trade Agreement brings together 2 billion people, representing a quarter of global GDP, a third of world trade and a market of USD 24 trillion. He also said the agreement had been in the making for twenty-five years before negotiations were concluded, and that all 27 European Union countries are on board and wish to complete the formalities quickly. The three wrong options are all round figures of the kind that feel plausible when a candidate remembers only that the number was large. Option D in particular is close to India's own population figure, which is why it tempts. The set of four numbers moves together and should be memorised together: two billion people, one quarter of global GDP, one third of world trade, twenty-four trillion dollars of market.

The correct answer is the second-largest. Shri Goyal said that Belgium stands at the gateway of the opportunity created by the India-EU FTA, and noted that the Port of Antwerp-Bruges is Europe's second-largest seaport. He described it as the doorway through which the promise of the agreement would physically arrive in Europe or be dispatched to India, combining Antwerp's inland barge, rail and road networks with the seabridges, deepwater and roll-on roll-off strengths of Bruges. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who was present, had himself called the port an important logistical link between India and Europe. Option A, the largest, is the most tempting wrong answer, because a port spoken of in such terms sounds like the biggest of all. Options C and D shift the ranking further down and are easier to reject. Rankings of this kind are favourite question material precisely because one word carries the whole fact.

The correct answer is USD 140 billion. The Commerce and Industry Minister said India's trade with the European Union had already doubled over the last decade to nearly this figure, which is why the conclusion of the Free Trade Agreement matters so much to both sides. Option D is drawn straight from another part of the same speech, where the Minister said the semiconductor mission would collectively catalyse nearly USD 70 billion worth of investment in India, and a candidate who remembers the digits but not the context will reach for it. Option A and option C are values placed on either side of the correct one, the standard way of testing whether a figure has been learnt exactly or only approximately. Keep the economic figures from this speech separate in memory by attaching each to its own subject: trade with the EU at USD 140 billion, the FTA market at USD 24 trillion, and the target of a USD 30 trillion economy by 2047.