We have some problems of course linked to the distance of our two regions that complicates the movement of people but also merchandises.”
Chile’s Ambassador to India Juan Angulo underscored the key issue underpinning the growth and expansion of India’s commercial and other links with South America: distance and the cost involved in transporting goods by air or sea.
“Logistics is an important part of our mutual work to improve and facilitate the connection, inter-connection between our two regions,” Ambassador Angulo said during a roundtable with StratNews Global.
“In our case we will hope that the Comprehensive Economic Partnership will be finished during this year, the sooner the better, in a mutually beneficial equilibriated manner.”
Argentina’s Ambassador Mariano Caucino grounded his argument in the acknowledged realities of geography.
“I think we belong to two regions that although we are very far away, although we belong to different cultures, they are called to increase the relationship since most of our countries and India enjoy a high degree of complementarity between our economies.”
India ranks as Argentina’s sixth largest trading partner and is a major supplier of oil with 50,000 tons of LPG dispatched to Indian ports this year. Trade volumes are small, rising from around $2 billion to $6 billion, but there is potential going forward and the key is ensuring it is sustainable.
Wagner Antunes, head of Trade Promotion in the Brazilian Embassy, who was also present at the roundtable, said “President Lula is very fond of India and we are very lucky to have excellent chemistry between Prime Minister Modi and President Lula.”
Bilateral trade in his view, “is booming” touching $15 billion, and its well diversified “based on new partnerships between companies, new investments, new technological partnerships.”
India’s need for Critical Minerals is widely acknowledged but as Chile’s ambassador underscored, it would require India to invest in processing and refining, so skills are built up over time in Chile and other countries.
Brazil also has massive reserves of niobium, which is crucial for fast charging of electric vehicles. Here too, Brazil will be looking to not just sell minerals but refine them into products that would find wider markets.
While India’s concerns about terrorism was understood, as the ambassadors pointed out, there are no such issues in their region. There are no issues about nuclear weapons in the region either and while the US abduction of Venezuela’s president Maduro was not liked, the region also knows it can do little about it.
