India and the EU hope to sign a free trade deal within a year, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Friday after a one-day EU-India summit in New Delhi.

Earlier in the week European Union officials said they would push hard for a bilateral free trade agreement with India. Danièle Smadja, the head of the European Commission Delegation in the Indian capital, urged New Delhi to get into the details of “a give and take process”, saying the political will to strike a deal after seven rounds of talks was now in place.