India eyes trade pacts with Latin American nations

As part of efforts to give a greater fillip to trade, the commerce ministry is working aggressively on finalising trade pacts with countries in the South East Asian region and some Latin American countries.

Going by the current indications, India is likely to ink preferential trade agreements with Latin American countries Uruguay, Chile and the Mercusor group this year.

Ministry officials said that drafts of the PTA with Uruguay had already been exchanged and it was now awaiting a formal signing by the concerned trade ministers sometime in February.

A PTA with Chile which was also expected to be finalised during a visit by a high-level delegation from Chile later this month.

In addition to this, the ministry was also working on a PTA with the Mercusor group -- Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Meanwhile, the ASEAN-India Economic Linkages Taskforce, which is working on a draft agreement to enhance economic co-operation, also had its first meeting recently and decided on a timeframe to finalise its report.

Sources said the taskforce is now likely to submit its report by August this year ahead of the ministers meeting.

A joint study undertaken by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research has pointed out that ASEAN and India offer a large market with a combined population of 1.48 billion people and therefore there is a great potential to enhance trade and investment flows between the two.

Officials pointed out that the taskforce would follow a building block approach to deepen economic co-operation finally leading to a free trade agreement.

India is also working on a free trade agreement with Thailand where a joint working group has completed its feasibility study.

The group which met in December 2002 in Bangkok is now finalising the framework of an agreement, they said adding the report of the group was likely to be finalised by July-August.

Similarly, a PTA with South Africa is also likely to be in place by the end of the calendar year.

Officials said the PTA with South Africa was eventually hoped to lead to a free trade agreement.