India Aggressively Pursuing Trade Prospects With LATAM: Commerce Minister

Trade & Policy

India Aggressively Pursuing Trade Prospects With LATAM: Commerce Minister

India's engagement with LAC (Latin American Countries) has gained further momentum with recent developments that have taken place. India signed an agreement on the expansion of India-Chile PTA in New Delhi on 6th September, 2016.

In recent years, trade between India and Peru has been growing. India's trade with Peru stood at US$ 1,523.35 million during 2015-16. Among the top ten commodities of India's export to Peru are motor vehicle/cars, products of iron and steel, cotton yarn/ manmade yarn/fabrics, cotton RMG, including accessories, etc.

The top ten commodities of India's import from Peru are bulk minerals and ores (under this copper ore is the top most imported commodity), gold (wrought gold), fertilizers crude, zinc, etc.

In order to explore the possibility of a trade agreement with Peru, India has concluded a Joint Study Group report on the feasibility of such a trade agreement during the recent visit of a delegation to Lima, Peru on 26-28 September, 2016.

India is also aggressively engaged in the expansion of its Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with MERCOSUR (a six-country trade bloc with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay as its original members). India's bilateral trade with MERCOSUR was US$ 10081.42 million in 2015-16 as compared to US$ 14,240.46 million in 2014-15 which constitute 37.01% and 39.96% of LAC trade during 2014-15 & 2015-16 respectively. With the expansion of the existing PTA, the bilateral trade is expected to be doubled.

India has held bilateral discussions with Brazil under the institutional mechanism i.e India-Brazil Trade Monitoring mechanism, the 4th meeting of which was held in Brasilia on 30th September, 2016 after a hiatus of more than four years. Both sides have discussed an array of bilateral issues which impede trade between both the countries.

During the meeting India highlighted its concerns on issues relating to market access in agriculture, textiles, pharma and services including high tax on import of services to Brazil. Brazil has responded favourably and has assured to address these issues. Collaboration in areas such as auto, food processing, leather and civil aviation were also discussed. Both sides have agreed for discussions on an agreement on social security.

Both sides discussed setting up of the India-Brazil Business Leaders Forum for facilitating interaction and cooperation amongst the private sector. Brazil is currently the leading trading partner of India in Latin America region. Total bilateral trade with Brazil stood at US$ 6,690.33 million during 2015-16 and both sides' agreed endeavor is to meet a trade target of US$ 15 billion by 2020.