The chief negotiators of India and the European Union will hold meetings in Brussels from on Monday with an aim to resolve their differences and conclude talks on a proposed market opening pact by April.

India’s chief negotiator, Commerce Ministry Additional Secretary P K Chaudhary, and EU Chief Negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero will kick off the three-day meeting from Monday at the European Union headquarters, a ministry official said.

“The negotiations are very much on track…about 95 per cent of the work has been completed and on the remaining part, complex give and take is required…hopefully we will complete that on time,” an official said.

Both the sides are aiming to conclude the talks for BITA, which would open commerce in goods, services and investment, by the first half of 2011.

The official said that negotiations are at a crucial stage as “we are deliberating mainly on reducing the number of items from the negative list (products on which duties will not be reduced in the pact)”.

After this meeting, EU officials would soon come to New Delhi for next round of talks.

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma had recently said that the talks are in the advance stage.

Both the sides have completed 12 rounds of negotiations.

The talks, which started in 2007, had hit roadblocks many times as there was a pressure from some of the EU members that social issues like environment and labour standards should be covered in the agreement.

However, India has been resisting these efforts.

The two sides recently stepped up efforts to resolve the pending issues as they want to conclude the negotiations by year end.

BITA will liberalise trade in services, an area of strength for India, which faces hurdles like visa problems in several EU member countries like Germany and Britain.

EU is India’s largest trading partner. The bilateral trade in 2009-10 aggregated to USD 75 billion.

According to an industry chamber report, India-EU trade is likely to more than double to exceed USD 207 billion by 2015, if the trade pact is formalised.

India has implemented free trade agreements with the ASEAN, South Korea and Singapore.

The country has signed two major pacts with Japan and Malaysia this month.