India, Latin American nations discuss ways to boost trade

India and the Latin American countries, including Peru and Brazil, are discussing ways such as inking free trade agreement to further boost trade and investments.

With Chile, India has signed an agreement on the expansion of the preferential trade agreement (PTA) in September.

"The expanded PTA will have far greater trade coverage in comparison to the agreement signed earlier in March as both sides have offered tariff concessions on a number of lines," the commerce ministry said in a statement.

India's trade with Peru stood at USD 1.5 billion in 2015-16. Among the top ten commodities of India's export to Peru are motor vehicle, cars, products of iron and steel, cotton yarn and fabrics.
 

Imports from Peru include bulk minerals and ores, gold, fertilizers crude and zinc.

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 pact.

It said that India and Peru have agreed to a time frame to carry forward the discussions for negotiating a trade agreement.

"With the finalization of the report, India will now seek internal approvals of the government for going ahead with the negotiations on a trade agreement which would include trade in goods, trade in services and investment," it added.

There is keen interest on the part of Peru also for negotiating a trade agreement at the earliest, it said. India is also aggressively engaged in the expansion of its PTA with MERCOSUR, a six-country trade bloc including Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

During the third meeting of the Joint Administrative Committee on the expansion of the India-MERCOSUR PTA held on September 29, in Brasilia, there was expansive discussions on the wish lists which had been exchanged by both sides in July.

Both sides are expected to hold the next round of negotiations early next year, it said.

The existing India-MERCOSUR agreement was signed in January 2004 which came into effect from June, 2009. "This agreement has a limited coverage and contains only 450 tariff lines. Both sides have now agreed to expand to cover up to 2500 tariff lines," the ministry said.

India's bilateral trade with MERCOSUR was USD 10. Billion in 2015-16 as compared to USD 14.24 billion in 2014-15. "With the expansion of the existing PTA, the bilateral trade is expected to be doubled," it said.