The India-EFTA agreement's USD 100 billion investment objective is a promotion duty, not investment protection

The Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) between India and the four European Free Trade Association (EFTA) States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, was signed on 10 March 2024 and entered into force on 1 October 2025. Its Chapter 7 sets a shared objective that the EFTA States aim to raise foreign direct investment (FDI) in India by 100 billion United States dollars (USD) over fifteen years and to facilitate one million direct jobs, but it binds the EFTA States only to promote that investment, bars dispute settlement under the agreement, and lets India, after a long consultation ladder, rebalance goods concessions. It gives an investor no protection of its own, and India's bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with Switzerland was terminated in 2017.

What does Chapter 7 say, and from when?

The agreement was signed at New Delhi on 10 March 2024. Article 14.7 makes it subject to ratification and provides that it enters into force on the first day of the third month after India and all four EFTA States have deposited their instruments with, or notified provisional application to, the depositary, which is Norway. The joint communique published by EFTA records that it entered into force on 1 October 2025, and every period in Chapter 7 runs from that date.

Article 7.1(3) states two shared objectives. The EFTA States "shall aim to increase" FDI from their investors into India by USD 50 billion within ten years of entry into force and by an additional USD 50 billion in the succeeding five years, and "shall aim to facilitate the generation of 1 million jobs" within fifteen years, resulting from that investment. A footnote limits "jobs" to direct employment in India clearly attributable to the investment. Another excludes investment routed through an EFTA State by non- party investors with no substantial business activities there, while investment routed from outside the EFTA States counts if shown to be by EFTA investors.

Footnote 7 explains the basis. India's nominal growth in US dollar terms was around 9.5 per cent a year over two decades, EFTA investment stock in India grew around 13 per cent a year to USD 10.7 billion in 2022, and the Parties anticipate an outperformance margin of 3 percentage points a year from full implementation. The objective rests on a growth assumption.

Who is bound to do what?

The verbs differ by party. Under Article 7.2(1) the EFTA States "shall promote" FDI from their investors into India and the generation of jobs from it, and a footnote excludes sovereign wealth funds from those promotion obligations. Under Article 7.2(2) India "shall endeavour to ensure a favourable climate" for FDI, "while taking into account the need to identify, assess and mitigate potential risks for security or public order".

So the obligation that can be breached is the promotion duty in Article 7.2(1). The USD 100 billion and the one million jobs are objectives the EFTA States aim at; the chapter does not make any State, or any private investor, liable for a shortfall. The chapter does not oblige any private company to invest.

Article 7.3 lists cooperation, including matchmaking, joint ventures and skills programmes, and a footnote says technology collaboration "does not require technology transfer".

Article 7.6 closes the door on formal adjudication: no Party may have recourse to the dispute settlement chapter for any matter arising under Chapter 7.

What is the desk, and what is the sub-committee?

Article 7.4 establishes a Sub-Committee on Investment Promotion and Cooperation of government representatives, whose mandate is in Annex 7.A. Article 7.5(1)(b) provides that, upon entry into force, India "shall establish a dedicated EFTA-Desk to assist investors from the EFTA States seeking to invest, investing or having invested, in particular with any problems that may arise". Each Party also designates a contact point.

The chapter calls it the EFTA-Desk and puts it on India. A Press Information Bureau backgrounder of 11 October 2025 calls it an India-EFTA Desk and says it has operated since February 2025, before entry into force; we have not seen an instrument establishing it. It is an assistance point, not a forum with power to decide a complaint.

What happens if the objective is not met?

The ladder in Article 7.7 is long, and its length is the point. The Sub- Committee reviews progress no later than five years after entry into force, no later than ten years, and at fifteen years, with a report each time. If it finds progress insufficient it records unforeseen events with a material bearing. Under Article 7.7(5), where a pandemic, war, geopolitical disruption, financial crisis or sustained economic underperformance has had a material bearing, the Parties "shall adjust the shared objectives accordingly" by amending Article 7.1(3).

Only if the objectives are not reached by the final review, and India considers that the EFTA States have not fulfilled the promotion duty, may India request consultations. Then:

• the Sub-Committee is convened within 30 days of India's written request;
• it endeavours to settle within 60 days of convening, a period that may be extended by up to one year on a Party's request;
• if the matter is unresolved one year after the request, it goes to the Joint Committee with recommendations, and if that does not resolve it within six months, to ministers, who begin within 30 days and have six months;
• if still unresolved, a grace period of three years follows on a Party's request.

Only then does Article 7.8 allow India, "notwithstanding any other provision", within one year, to "undertake temporary and proportionate remedial measures to rebalance the concessions" it gave the EFTA States in the Schedule of Commitments under the Trade in Goods chapter. It must notify the grounds and the start date at least 30 days beforehand. The measures end when the objectives are achieved, by agreement, or on a recommendation under Article 7.8(4), and if they run beyond three years either side may ask the Joint Committee to examine them, and the Joint Committee must then do so at two-year intervals.

Article 7.7(7) limits the consultations to whether the promotion duty was fulfilled.

What are the dates and figures?

An illustration. The company, the plant and the figures below are hypothetical, chosen only to show how the text counts. A Swiss maker of precision measuring equipment sets up a plant in India through a subsidiary, investing USD 60 million and employing 300 people directly.

Dates from entry into force on 1 October 2025
  First review, no later than                        1 October 2030
  Second review, no later than                       1 October 2035
  Final review                                       1 October 2040
  First USD 50 billion tranche (ten years)           by 1 October 2035
  Additional USD 50 billion (succeeding five years)  by 1 October 2040

The plant against the objectives
  Investment counted towards USD 100 billion         USD 60 million, if shown to be
                                                     made by an EFTA investor
  Direct jobs counted towards one million            300, if clearly attributable
  Share of the investment objective                  0.06 per cent
  Share of the jobs objective                        0.03 per cent
  Investment per job, the plant                      USD 200,000
  Investment per job, the objectives as a whole      USD 100,000

Longest literal path to remedial measures, if the final review in
October 2040 finds the objectives unmet (illustrative)
  India requests consultations                       October 2040
  Unresolved one year after request                  October 2041
  Joint Committee, six months                        April 2042
  Ministers, six months                              October 2042
  Grace period of three years, on request            October 2045
  Remedial measures to begin within one year         by October 2046

The first block follows Articles 7.1 and 7.7. The second shows a single plant is a small fraction of the totals; the objectives imply about USD 100,000 of investment per direct job. The third adds the periods in Article 7.7(8) to (12) as if each ran in full; the Parties may agree different timelines, and an extension of the 60-day period is not in the table.

The plant's own position does not depend on the table. The Swiss parent has the protections of Indian law and its contracts, and no claim under the agreement: Chapter 7 gives an investor no right of action, and Article 7.6 shuts out State-to-State dispute settlement over it. India's BIT with Switzerland, signed on 5 April 1997 and in force from 16 February 2000, is shown on the Department of Economic Affairs list as terminated on 22 March 2017. We have not read the treaty's survival clause here, so this note does not say whether investments made before termination remain covered. The list, as we read it, shows a BIT with Iceland (terminated 31 July 2019) but no row for Norway or Liechtenstein.

What do the tariff concessions do for such a plant?

Chapter 7 is not where the plant's costs are set. Article 2.4 requires each Party to apply import duties on originating goods in accordance with the schedules in Annexes 2.C to 2.F, and where the most-favoured-nation applied rate is lower than the scheduled rate the lower rate applies. EFTA's factsheet records that the EFTA States maintain the elimination of customs duties on industrial products and fish originating in India, and that India reduces and eliminates duties on a significant share of industrial products from the EFTA States, naming machinery among them. It also records that the rules of origin are largely EFTA's model and use value-added criteria as an optional rule in parts of the product-specific rules.

We have not read the individual tariff lines. Whether imported components fall in a line that is eliminated, reduced over a phase-out or excluded depends on the heading, as does whether the plant's exports to Switzerland meet the product-specific rule of origin. The link to Chapter 7 is Article 7.8, which reaches this same goods schedule.

What remains unsettled?

Four points.

What counts as "insufficient". Article 7.7(4) uses the word without a measure, and footnote 7 ties the objective to a growth assumption of around 9.5 per cent a year. Whether a shortfall that tracks lower growth is an unforeseen circumstance under Article 7.7(5), leading to adjustment instead of consultation, is not answered by the text.

What "promote" requires of the EFTA States. Article 7.2(1) is the only obligation that can be found unfulfilled, yet the text lists no conduct that satisfies it, and private investment decisions are outside State control.

How investment is attributed. The footnotes treat routed investment, and jobs "clearly attributable" to it, but the chapter does not say which body counts either or on what data.

What "temporary and proportionate" means in Article 7.8, and against which of the goods concessions. The text says remedial measures rebalance concessions in the goods schedule, without a formula, and any measure is fifteen or more years away.