Exclusive: FTAs open both trade and innovation opportunities says Anant Maheshwari, President and CEO, Honeywell global regions

The recently concluded negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the European Union is being seen as an important milestone by both India and EU as a historic deal in the current uncertainty around trade taxation and stability. In 2025 alone India signed FTAs with the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Oman apart from the earlier agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius and a Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement with Australia in 2022. With the world trade order now changed Anant Maheshwari, President and CEO, Honeywell global regions more bilateral trade agreements around the world. Speaking exclusively to Fortune India he said that the world will see a lot more countries taking the bilateral trade route and FTAs. “ I think biggest impact of this would be to think through how trade and innovation is increasing on both sides of the free trade agreement and that is where at Honeywell we are focused on delivering on that trade opportunity and innovation opportunity which is around manufacturing , which is around how the physical ai lands in every country differently and how to enable that . We have a global footprint, but we are very local in all the priority countries that we present in,” Anant told Fortune India.  

India and the European Union first started negotiations for a free trade agreement in 2007, however the talks were suspended in 2013 and then relaunched in 2022. The 14th and last formal negotiating round took place in October 2025, followed by intersessional discussions at technical and political level. According to the Indian government Bilateral merchandise trade between India and the EU was valued approximately at INR 11.5 Lakh Crore (USD 136.54 billion) in 2024-25, with India exporting roughly INR 6.4 Lakh Crore (USD 75.85 billion) to the EU. India-EU trade in services reached INR 7.2 Lakh Crore (USD 83.10 billion) in 2024. 

The current geopolitical turn of event which is reshaping the global supply chains and making enterprises rethink their strategies, from a Honeywell standpoint, Anant said that the company in fact had begun reorganizing the supply chain much before right at from the time of Covid pandemic. “We did a lot of work in the 5 years to completely enable the supply chains to deal with any kind of uncertainty that may happen in the world of trade. And in a way we did not anticipate specifically for this particular reason but today with all the changes that are happening to the global world trade order , we are very well geared to react to it very quickly and adapt to it and continue to serve our customs and partners deeply,” Anant further said.