India and Mercosur have a preferential trade agreement (PTA) signed in 2004 and operational since 2009, covering approximately 450 products with limited tariff preferences (mostly 10-20%), but the agreement has not significantly expanded trade volumes due to low coverage, high non-tariff barriers, and logistical challenges. Brazil dominates the relationship with $20 billion in trade, while Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay have much smaller shares. The PTA's effectiveness is limited because most covered products (like soybean oil) represent concentrated trade flows, and the agreement lacks modern FTA disciplines covering services and investment. Despite unrealized trade potential (estimated at $30-35% above current levels), expanding the PTA to include more products, reducing non-tariff barriers, improving connectivity, and moving toward a broader economic partnership could significantly deepen India-Mercosur trade and investment relations.
India and Mercosur: Towards a deepening of trade and investment relations追加:
Hey, hey, hey.
Good morning to you all. We'd like to welcome to this webinar India and Merosur towards to a deepening of commercial relationships and investments. We want to remind you that this event has two channels, one in Spanish and one in English so that you can follow the presentations and the debate in the language of your preference. In the event of you having entered in to the wrong channel in the actual YouTube um channel, you will have the link to have access to the right one. We'd like to thank the embassies, the system of information and development for RIS and the center of analysis and and broadcast of the economy of Peru Kadep.
Without further ado, we'd like to give the floor to Professor Sashin Kumad Sharma, director general of RAIS for his initial remarks.
Thank you very much.
Good evening and good morning uh to all of you uh depending on uh the time and place where are you uh and welcome to all uh for this very important uh event on India Marasur uh deepening trade and investment relation and that is very important uh issue given the what is happening across the world uh given that uh uh lot of uh supply chain disruption is there, multilateralism going down and there this uh deepening trade relation is extremely important and uh you can say that this is the demand uh uh this is the main uh thing which is required uh to uh strengthen the trade and investment relationship and given the fact uh uh that uh there are four objectives of this webinar to analyze the structure and trend of trade and investment between India and Merkasur. Then examine what is happening in the current state of negotiation and to discuss economic and political condition that can favor uh this relationship further and how we can uh take these things forward. That is the another objective and given the fact that uh we have uh very good speakers u in the next two session and before that I would like to thanks professor Fernando Messi director CEP then ambassador excellency Mr. Flleming and uh our Indian ambassador Dr. P Singh, thank you. Thank you for uh for this uh inaugural session and uh I will not take much time. I know that it is very tight schedule. Um but one thing I can say that uh given the fact within India from India side we are uh now it is uh more focus on uh free trade agreement given the fact that in recent past we have signed lot of uh FDAs uh with many countries and uh we uh given the fact that how the discussion move uh but we are from the RAS on the behalf of RA we are committed to do more research how to facilitate uh and deepen the trade relation and and investment relation with all of you and another thing we also would like to collaborate with you on important research issues. Thank you very much from my side. Thank you.
We want to thank the words of Professor Sashin Kumar and we'd like to give the word to Mr. Fernando Massie. Professor is the director of Kadep. You have the floor, Mr. Massie.
Good morning to you all. On behalf of CADB, I would like to welcome you to this very important webinar that we have organized jointly with RAIS and the support of the um Indian embassy in Paraguay towards a deepening of commercial relationships and investment relationships between India and Merosur. I'd like to uh greet professor Satin Kumar Sharma. He's the director of RAIS.
Uh also I'd like to um greet the ambassador of Paraguay in India who has given us a space for this who has who's here for us for this opening ceremony and of course the ambassador of Indian Paraguay with which we have been working very intensely towards the success of this webinar. This webinar I believe is very timely. the importance that uh it has this webinar in a moment in time in which India is having a an approach that is go stronger and stronger in commercial as well in investment to Latin America and most particularly to Merosur where we have an agreement of commercial preference but we also negotiating a free trade agreement at this very moment as we speak. So I believe that the presentations that will be provided in this webinar I believe that will depict very clearly the commercial relationship and the investment relationship that each one of the countries Americasur has with India. the opportunities that are so many that we need to continue broadening and deepening our relationship and in what stage negotiations are at this point for the towards a free trade agreement between India and the Merkosur.
I also believe and I believe it's important that as of this webinar we should be creating more academic networks both with RAIS as well as other centers um think tanks so that we can start discussing and and we can get their support of this very important opportunity of deepening our relationship with India both as meosur and and as Paraguay in particular. So I'm very thankful for this. So that'll be all.
Thank you Dr. Massi.
Now I would like to give the floor to his your excellency Mr. Fleming Dwarti ambassador of the Republic of Paraguay in India. You have the floor.
Good morning to you all. Good afternoon.
I'm in the same I'm not in India at this moment in time. I have come to Paraguay for a very special family occasion.
So I want to apologize because I will have to fly uh towards to the uh graduation of my son who is has becoming a PhD and in economic policy. We're very proud very good news for Paraguay too.
So ambassador colleagues of India in Asunion Mr. you is excellent CPUs friends and colleasi colleagues of Paraguay friends all I did not want to miss this opportunity to provide a short message but very relevant taking into account the enormous potential that towards the economic and strategic future of Paraguay uh this us. In other words, the alliance with India, the partnership with India. Before going f further, I'd like to congratulate ourselves for the 65th anniversary uh of diplomatic relations between Paraguay and India that started in 1961.
And in the past 10 or 15 years, this relationship has in fact become more dynamic with the visit of the vice president in 2019, the min minister of states as well and colleagues, vice ministers of the department of foreign relations of India.
The official visit of the president pñena in year 2025 represents a a historical historic moment to strengthen the connections between our countries such as it was said India has be consolidated as one of the economies that grows the most in in the world 7 to 8% with more than 1.4 4 billion inhabitants and a growing um uh global influence particularly in IT innovation, energy as well as manufacturer. For Paraguay to strengthen this relationship means to open new opportunities for trade, investment and of course international cooperation.
During the visit of President Pñena, President Pñena had meetings both with the presidents of India, the prime minister and very high authorities of the economic sphere as well as authorities, local authorities such as the secretary of state of the of the ministers of Mahadashra.
fundamentally more than 100 people. It is with 100 CEOs. It is not normal that a president will meet with the CEOs of companies. But President Pñena manifested he wanted to to have this type of meeting. So I believe this is a very important moment between the relation in the relationship between India India and Paraguay. It is in its highest peak I want to say and during these conversations of course it was of course highlighted the mutual interest of expand cooperation in areas such as biotechnology uh precision agriculture energy IT pharmaceutical industry um products uh health products as well as infrastructure paraguay also Alo um presented its main strengths, clean energy, um macroeconomic stability, business environment that is favorable, a tax structure that is also very convenient and very simple, the food production to add uh value to our products, our commodities, and most particularly a strategic place within in the heart of Mira. Kosour in this context it becomes this agreement becomes very important the one mentioned by Dr. Masi the um the FTA by his between India and Merosur the free trade agreement. This agreement was signed in year 2004 and enter into force in 2009. But we have not made much progress in this regard. But it had allow allowed us to have tariff preferences for about 400 products um in both parts. And currently India and the countries of Merkosur are fostering conversation to expand and deepen this agreement with a main objective to facilitate trade and new investments too. But the path is not easy for Paraguay.
Once again, this represents a a strategic opportunity. Our country has a large capacity, exporting capacity such for products such as beef products, soybeans, grains, and renewable energy that can respond to the growing demand of the Indian market. The Indian market, just to have an idea, is made up for more than 300 million consumers. that is middle class and high class and people that are going up in classes for 2030 it will be of close of 450 to 500 million consumers we're expecting at the same time India can become a key partner for Paguay in terms of innovation digitalization to contribute with the agenda of the digital platform in platform in our country pharmaceutical ical industries as well strategic India is well known as a pharmacy of the world and mainly the uh IT development mechanization for example um tractors uh that are of middle size 100 150 horsepowers uh those that are developed by the industry in India through Majindra as well as other industrial uh metal For example, we I have held several conversations with these important companies and they are very interested in setting up in Paraguay also taking advantage of the Mackila law.
On the other hand, we have also fostered several missions, commercial missions to Paraguay. Taking advantage of the expo fair that takes place every year in in Paraguay, we have been able to attract biotechnology companies. Prash Industries, which is a biotechnology industry.
It's a company that is internationally renowned and as of 2019 is already working in Paraguay. Um after the visit of President Pena an agreement was signed with Misur which is a national company that produces bofuel. So the challenge is to produce bofuel that is for aviation uh purposes to make it sustainable. It has an infinite demand and we have the platform and the raw material to be able to develop this product.
But what is it? We have several conditioning factors. However, we I think I I see that some countries are developing a business council between India and other latitudes. We should be able should be doing the same thing.
We've developed a business council to facilitate the dialogue between the private and the public sector which is very important to facilitate and harmonize regulations and facilitate trade and most particularly promote this dialogue in order to to to have more trust and more information.
And I also mentioned before the commercial missions and between um buyers sellers sellers buyers to our fair that these fairs could be in Paraguay as well as other countries in the region. They're very important regional fairs in which these platforms are established to be able to get to know each other and promote their own products.
the the digital platform. I had we I had said that India is very very strong in in information technology and they offer this facility so we can adopt them and adapt them to the national conditions but mainly I'm I'm I mean that we need to establish platforms for ummemes that we know that in India and Paraguay They have a very important role in the productive structure between 90 and 95% both in India and Paraguay taking into account the size of this company they arememes and in India they are receiving a lot of relevance facilitating credit insurance trainings connections direct connection with university, academic sector and strategic sectors.
This is a strategic avenue that we need to continue to exploit. We still do not have an agreement with an important university such as the India Institute of Technology, the India Technological Institute which is like the MIT in the US.
Only one Paraguayan citizen has ever graduated from this university.
Really admirable. This is pure statistics that I'm mentioning. Also, I want to emphasize the sign signing of agreements between chambers of commerce and exports.
We have two agreements actually. one with the UIP which is the Industrial Union in Paraguay.
The CI the Confederation of Industries of India signed an agreement enforcement now with the UIP. Also the Chamber of Commerce of Mombay, one of the oldest has signed an agreement with Reddit Paraguay during this visit. This is really important because our problem is the lack of information.
It's important for these institutions then both public and private to be able to start conversations and to establish programs and projects. Another point that we want to emphasize is the approaching of India to multilaterals. The IDB for example and CAF which is the Latin American development bank. CF was here in India actually during a business event organized by the Indian Latin American Industry Association and this should be moved forward. This this needs to be consolidated because that's how you remove this lack of information obstacle between the this country and the region there. There's more progress with larger countries like Brazil of course including Mahindra and other companies that have started conversations with companies in the region.
Uh Paraguay has really advantageous situations to become a gateway for Merosur because of cost advantages.
We're also working on the infrastructure investing there. The Bioan corridor is going to facilitate uh our relations with Asia especially with India.
We don't have relations, diplomatic relations with China, but India is going to be our platform, our base in Asia.
There's countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, etc. And others in the southeast of Asia.
And I believe we need more infrastructure, not only physical but like I said before digital infrastructure which shortens time and apart from establishing relationships between our region and India not only with India it could be like a wider forum including other Asian countries. There's all to do, a lot of work ahead in terms of regulations for instance, uh tariffs for instance that are a very important barrier to trade.
But anyway, it's not only trade. This is not only about trade. It's this these commercial relations can also help ex strengthen the academic exchange between our countries creating new opportunities for future generations.
Something important to highlight is to the opening of the mission of Indian assoc.
We've increased the number of young professionals through scholarships.
They've come to India. At least 300 professionals in the last 3 years and more are going to come to continue promoting this kind of exchange.
Something else not unimportant is language. Language is something that facilitates relationships, understanding.
And that's why we're trying to have India send maybe English teachers to the different academic institutions here.
The percentage of people that speak English in Paraguay is about 30 35% only.
But we need to make to to take make the most of this opportunity. Same for India.
Many of of my friends there have learned Spanish at the Cervantes Institute and of course English is like the bridge the lingua frana for about 30 states. If you go to Maharashtra, they speak their n the their native language. Although Hindi is the official one, but most states continue speaking their native languages and English is a bridge like a lingua frana.
Now we need to transform potential into concrete results.
So many memorandums have been signed but it's also important to develop projects to undertake projects after signing these memoranda.
We also have uh solar energy. Well, although we have a lot of energy coming from hydropower, we need to look for other alternatives as well like solar especially in the Choco region I understand and the the electricity company has launched a tender for projects like this.
But another challenge is changing the legislation.
and I believe has also started this process to change this so that if the private sector can produce electricity and they have a surplus then this can surplus can be uh sent to the grid to be distributed and then we have bofuels I believe is another important aspect and food paraguay is a very strong producer of food.
Our main export to to India is soybean oil.
We can increase that three times.
Our trade volumes with India is not over. It's just under four million $400 million.
But we can double that. We can make it 10 times even 10 times bigger.
But we need to take advantage of this context to to strengthen our relations. I want to congratulate the ambassador Push Singh, Mr. Massie and and his team and the RAIS. We have very good relations with this institution.
When President Pena visited they offered a platform for President Pena to address many leaders in India and I'm at your disposal here. I have to leave now but I would have loved to stay here and participate uh for the whole duration of this seminar. I think you're going to be taking lessons and conclusions here that will be we'll continue the conversation going forward. Have a very productive day.
Thank you Mr. Pleart the ambassador of Paraguay in India. On behalf of the forum, we want to congratulate you on the academic achievements of your family member.
Now we give the floor to his excellency Push Singh, Ambassador of India in Paraguay. The floor is yours, your excellency.
>> Thank you. Uh thank you. Given the time constraints, I'll keep myself very brief. Uh let me begin by wishing everybody a very good morning from Asunion. I also thank RAIS and KATIP for organizing this webinar on this very relevant subject of India and Bakuser trade and investment relations.
During the state visit of his his excellency President Santiago Pñena Palasios to India in June 2025.
Both sides had noticed their interest in strengthening and expanding existing trade links under the India Marosur preferential trade agreement. Further, the first meeting of India Paraguay joint commission mechanism which was held in November 2025 emphasized the importance of strengthening ties between India and Makosur as a means to expand trade and investment opportunities. This semester Paraguay is holding the prompor presidency of Marosur.
Uh dear friends, in my opinion, the value of this webinar which is being held today lies in bringing together the views and assessments of track 2 experts on this very pertinent subject. The consolidation of these views in form of a specific recommendations that would emerge from today's webinar could help further inform the various relevant stakeholders who continue to work on expanding the India Marusur agenda.
Further as the ambassador of India to Paraguay, I am glad that this webinar also represents the strengthening of ties between track to institutions of India and Paraguay. I heartily congratulate RA and CADP for this partnership. I should also mention that 2026 is a special year in which we are celebrating the 65th anniversary of India Paraguay diplomatic relations.
This webinar is a welcome and a very welcome addition to these celebrations.
On my behalf, I welcome the moderators and speakers for this webinar. Professor Sachin Kumar Sharma, Director General Aras, Professor Fernando Masi, Director Kadep, Professor Manuel Gonzalo from Argentina, Dr. Reinato Bman from Braasil, Dr. Ignasio Bartisagi from Uruguay, Professor Billins from Paraguay, Professor Fernando Rebe from Braasil and Dr. Pankard Vashir from India. I also thank ambassador of Paraguay, his excellency Mr. Fleming Dwarte for his participation despite his very important family obligations. Your idea of establishing India Paraguay Business Council is very interesting and we should work on it. uh with those words I look forward to fruitful discussions during the webinar as well as specific recommendations emerging from it towards deepening of trade and investment relations between India and Marosur. Thank you much gracias.
Thank you very much his excellency uh Bush Singh ambassador of India to Paraguay. And this is this marks the end of the opening part of the program. And now we go to the first panel.
But before that, I want to reiterate that this webinar has two language channels, one being English and the other Spanish for you to follow the conversations, the debate in your language of preference in the YouTube channel. If you joined incorrectly, if you clicked on the wrong language in the YouTube chat, you can find the link to the right language.
Having said this, we thank the uh the the the the speakers or the persons that gave us their welcoming remarks and we open the first panel trade and investment between mercur countries and India recent balances and opportunities. The first panel will be moderated by professor Sashin Kumar Sharma, specialist in trade policy with experience of over 30 30 years.
He's a doctor in economy from the University of Aua Haral Neru and he's currently serving as director general of the RAIS in association with Kadib to organize this webinar. The floor is yours, professor.
>> Uh thank you Marcelot. Uh thanks a lot uh for uh giving the introduction uh and also uh a special thank to u uh ambassador remark uh excellency flaming and also Dr. uh PC for highlighting the importance uh of this webinar and uh both have mentioned that there are lot of potentials um that we can capitalize on each other we can leverage on each other and how to move ahead there are lot of scopes are there and in this session this specific session which I'm moderating it it is all about trade and investment between merkasur countries and India uh descent balance and potential opportunity. In this session uh what we are going to uh discuss about what are these specific opportunity and even there are existing opportunity why we are not able to capitalize on those uh things what are the challenges what are the issues are there what are the tariff non-tariff or any other regulatory measures uh maybe uh the exporters are facing or the investor are facing. So looking forward for uh uh this specific session. We have four uh presentation uh from uh professor Manuel Prof from Argentina, professor Dr. Renato from Brazil, uh Dr. Ignosia from Uruguay and uh professor Balen from Paraguay.
uh before joining as a director general uh RAIS I was into the WTO negotiation and I uh I were there in keep interacting with the all the merkasur countries on the trade issues at the WTO at the multilateral level and yes in sometime the bilateral level also I keep discussing these some of the things and here uh uh let's go one by one uh I request professor Manuel from Argentina.
Please uh uh present your views uh and be specific and you have 12 minutes uh uh so that we we should get some specific uh recommendation how to move forward, how you see this India and uh Argentina relation what are the challenges are there? How we can cooperate uh between these two countries? This is the one thing and also how to take the research forward.
Looking forward to your insights. Uh, Professor Manuel, over to you.
Thank you very much for the presentation, for the space. I want to thank Az Cave and the ambassadors for having introduced us Fernando Satim and as well as my colleagues in the panel to me. I've been studying India for quite some time.
Hello.
Yes, it is a a pleasure to be able to be here. I had the opportunity to of participating of different seminars of our in India in which the one that Santiago Pñena was there was one organized by IRS of about triangular cooperation and also in the case of Paraguay I could present an article about India. So I'm always available to cooperate in these spaces. So having said that I'd like to introduce to present.
He's trying to share his screen.
Can you see my presentation?
In this presentation, the relation in Argentina will be discussed with an emphasis in commerce.
some uh uh about the companies India and Argentina set up in both countries and perspectives in the mercosur framework. So the proposal is that very briefly discuss a moment in which the relationship between India Latin America and Merosur commercial relation between India and Argentina and something that I want to highlight is a regional structure of trade between Argentina and India. In other words, where do exports of Argentina come? The Indian company set up in Argentina and Argentinian company set up in India and the strength, challenges, perspectives in the framework of the uh preferential trade agreement between Merosur and India.
For those of us that have been following the relationship and most particularly the performance of the Indian economy, I believe we have a consensus there is that there is a main driver in the growth which is a growth that India has been havinging uh three as of three decades ago um uh I think he said uh 7 to 8% uh um growth per year in this context we see that in the last decade there is higher visibility of Latin America and the Indian diplomacy for example in the Ministry of Foreign Relationships of India there's a a specific area that is now geared towards Latin America obviously for the Indian economy food and fuels uh it has been a core topic and in this regard Latin American Rica it can complement India's production clearly also for India it is important when we look at the commercial flows we see investments in general in Latin America in pharma um in engineering pharmaceutical services also there are also important points in the global agenda geopolitical agenda as well the cooperation in Antarctica the South south cooperation critical minerals and what we see visa v Latin America is that in the past 15 years commerce has grown as well and high level visits have taken place to the southern cone dianar in Argentina Brazil but also peraguay uh before the summit of breaks in Rio deanedo he traveled through Argentina too. So we have had in the past five years different um high level visits of India to the southern cone and also from the southern cone to India such as it was the case of Santiago Pñena. Um embassies have been opened in Paraguay as well as the one they've decided to open up an embassy in Uruguay as well. there's higher visibility of India in the business world of Latin America. So in effect the strength that India has in terms of the AU and uh their soft power is very strong and most particularly going to our conversation we as a as a background uh uh we have the bricks plugs as a plus as a platform in which India has a very important role and the TLC's that are in under negotiation both from the Pacific area, Chile and Peru as well as measur FTAs that is he spoke he gave the acronym in Spanish. Now this is a progress of India India and Merosur trade um relationship. It was published in the journal of RAIS. If we look at the structure of trade, these are this is information of 20 2020 2023 20 merur with India. Clearly, Brazil is a country that has a higher commercial flow. And if we add exports and imports, we're talking of about 20 um billion dollars about our like I said, Brazil would be the main commercial partner, trade partner.
Second would be Argentina and Uruguay and Paraguay will follow. Now about Argentina perhaps one of the information the main information is that we see an important surplus uh with India that is taking into account Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay too which trade is deficit. If we look at the trade uh structure, Argentina exports mainly um soy, bean, oil and seed oils, fuel.
We import fuel, chemical products and vehicles.
I will allow my colleagues to discuss their own countries. Of course, if we look at the trade between India and Argentina, we see that it's been growing and it's had a peak in year 2022 in which the imports and exports have reached 6 billion and USD. This is information up to 2023.
I'll show you more current information soon. So trade has been growing with a greater participation of the argentinian exports. In this regard, if we look uh if we look at the exports of Argentina to India >> reporting in progress >> information of 2025 um we see that basically soybean oil that is the raw is 68% of the exports that a sunflower um oil 15% So more than 80% of of our exports are vegetable oils, vegetital oils.
>> We also have gold export gold to India and then um um oil crude crude oil and um others.
So, so our exports are very concentrated in seed oils uh um some um crude oil and this is a structure of the exports of Argentina to India. If we zoom in, if we want to want to go to agro industry, the Argentinian exports within the imports of India, we see that in soybean oil, the exports in Argentina represent 50% of uh of the exports. s of soybean in India other derivat 49% and in the case of molting barley 46%. So in these three line items the participation of Argentinian exports are more than 40% of their total imports.
So these are products that are relevant for the import basket of India. In terms of the imports that Argentina does from India, we see that the structure of imports is very different to that of the exports. In what sense? That the import structure is much more frag much more fragmented.
So we have 1 million2 million $3 million of different items.
So if we want to look at the product that we are mostly importing today from India we see that is mainly that our motorbikes of different uh number of cylinders uh that is gas oil 7.8% 8% between motorbikes and gas oil 15% and also we have the chemical compounds which I believe it's one of the relevant imports as well diesel engines machinery for to distribution of back notes tires for agricultural agriculture machinery. Now all of this with a share that is much smaller in terms of its participation in trade 2% 1%.
And with regard to the relevance of India in the exports of Argentina, th this is information of this year as March 2026 the source of index the statistic institute of Argentina we see that India represents approximately 6.3% of Argentinian exports that is um after Chile and and one point China. So we talking of the fifth trade partner in terms of exports for Argentina. India is our fifth trade partner for Argentina that is a country that needs US dollars and that the need of US dollars is very relevant at all times. You can imagine that our fifth trade partner is extremely important for a whole country.
So, so uh summarizing trade between both countries.
I want to say that India is the fifth destination of Argentinian exports and it has a surplus balance Argentina with India. Exports are mainly manufacturers of agricultural origin with a strong concentration in soybean and sunflower oil. Imports are much more diversified mainly manufactured that are industrial motorbikes, spare parts of telephones, the bars of um stainless steel, automoils, engines, um tires. So trade with India represented almost 6% of export and 1.5% of imports in Argentina.
and the exports are also concentrated in ve in very small um actors. However, imports are more diversified. Now, I would like to zoom into the regions that of Argentina that export to India. If we look at the structure of the exports of Argentina divided by regions, we will see that the main export region is the PMA region with uh these yearon-year 62 billion US 70% of the exports. We also have Patagonia and Northeast and Kuyo. This is in general terms, but I'd like to zoom in as to which provinces in Argentina exports to India. And we will see that there are three Argentinian provinces that are part of the central Pa region that um contribute almost 80% of export to India. Santa Fe, Buenosides and Cordova. these three provinces inserted in the Pampa region as well as San Puan that we that is related to minor and gold that Argentina exports to India and in effect in particular India represent 7.4% 4% of the exports of the Pampa region.
In this regard, India is a third destination in terms of importance of the Pampa region. And we talking of mainly Buenosarees, Santa Fe and Cordova. So we see here the exports mainly sunflower and uh soybeans oil to India but exports of the region of Kujo are significant too. India represents 50% of the exports of Kuyo region mainly gold the province of San Juan and it's the second destination of >> professor man sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry to disturb you but uh uh can you wrap it up in 2 minutes already 12 minutes sp so If we look at uh the Indian companies that are set up in Argentina, there's this information over the Indian embassy in Argentina. We see that there are more Indian companies set up in Argentina than the other way around. the Argent Argentine in India, Tachin, Globant, Ainsa and Insa and India's in Argentina we have several connected to motor bikes um hero bay royal and field but also some connected to agri businesses infosys information technology and agro industry.
So to wrap up and conclude strengths and challenges with regard to economic relationship. Although it is there is a vast distance and logistic costs the growth of the trade flow is very important and there it has a trade superhood in Argentina.
Exports are very concentrated and in oils and minery and there is there are sectors that can be enhanced. It's important to supportmemes so that they can internationally trade with India. Imports are very diversified there very few companies that are set up in India and the other so vice versa. So we need to um follow the Indian public companies in terms of minery in ar in Argentina and there is a international cooperation that is becoming open which I'm not going to discuss now with regard to the preferential agreement a trade agreement that the colleagues will be discussing too I just want to say that we are in this stage that there are 400 products and the idea is to uh go towards 3,000 to 400,000 products with lower tariffs and in which sectors of Argentina I believe there is a lot of margin to make progress products and manufacturers that of agriculture origin wine um sweets uh poultry rice cells for consumption in India fertilizers fuel minerals and there are some sectors that are sensitive for Argentina because Argentina has an industry that perhaps u uh has to complement or compete with Indian and uh India uh pharma pharmaceutical and automo industry as you know this the negotiations are open and let's hope that our contributions and this seminar will help to make progress in the connection between uh the South America and India.
Thank you very much. Namaste.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Professor Manuel.
It's a really fantastic uh presentation and you highlighted lot of points uh for uh uh deepening the relationship uh uh on the issue of trade and investment. Uh you have highlighted the composition of export and import between India and Argentina. the challenges uh which uh which are there uh and uh uh especially highlighting that how the agriculture and some of the manufacturing sector also have a lot of potential.
Furthermore uh thanks uh professor Manuel and uh just uh for the audience uh few one or two point about professor Manuel he is a he's a PhD in economics from federal university of Rio DJ Jio from Brazil professor and researcher at national university of kim and of the national university of chilicio me and also a member of Argentinian Ian Council of International Relation and furthermore he's also coordinator of working group on India and Ashan affair as well as member of working group of bricks plus with CRI he has lot of heads like associate researcher of uh research network on local productive and innovative system and he had lot of publication and also one important book he had written on India and uh Latin America Thank you.
Thank you professor Manuel for fantastic uh presentation and we'll uh uh we will have I think lot of questions maybe we'll come back on this. Now uh let's move to uh the second presentation of this session and this session is by Dr. Renato uh from Brazil and a few uh things about Dr. Renato. Uh he is a PhD in economics from Oxford University, former director of the UN Economic Commission of Latin American and the Caribbean office in Brazil, former director of the international unit of research institute of applied economics and professor at the University of Brazilia.
18 books and and tons of uh tens of articles he have published and uh I can say Dr. and uh given the fact your background itself say that you have already have written so many books in the in your background thank you very much and Dr. Nato you have 12 minutes sharp 12 minutes after 12 minutes I will just intervene just to say few final points over to you Dr. Uh good morning or afternoon, evening wherever you are. Thanks for the invitation for participating in this event at at a time particularly important in the relations between our countries.
I'm going to be sharing with you my presentation and can you see it?
Yes.
So I'm going to give you an overview of the relationships u relationship between Brazil and India and see how we can move forward. Starting by a brief comparative overview of the two economies. How do they compare?
India's GDP is almost twice the Brazilian GDP in constant values. Of course the population is seven times the Brazilian population. So these are two very distinct economies in terms of um uh relative weight of the industrial sector.
The weight of the industry total industry mining construction transformation etc. The GDP in India this is uh a larger portion than in Brazil. Also the value produced by the industry in India and and the global uh number is much higher. It's almost four times higher. On the right you see the imports of goods and services over GDP.
18% for India and 13% for Brazil which is really closely related to participation in value chains in the total exports of India 18% in Brazil this is not much over 10% but there are huge differences in the in their international economic relations like you know Almost half of the exported value of India, the total value is in services. But in Brazil, this is not more than 12%.
But even in spite of all these differences, the Brazilian economy attracts um a much larger volume of foreign direct investment.
61 billion US in 2024 versus 44 billion attracted by India.
This reflects a characteristic of the Brazilian economy. It's much more open to capital flows than to the movement of goods. Now, what can we say about bilateral trade?
It's just like in Argentina, it's it's like a north south type relationship.
What I mean is these are the 10 main exports of India to Brazil in 2025. These are clearly industrialized products. But an additional characteristic, these 10 products represent not more than onethird of everything that India exported to Brazil in 2025.
It's only 33%.
However, Brazilian exports to India for the same year have a strong component of agriculture mining just like in the Argentinian case. But the additional characteristic here is that these 10 products represent 82% of total Brazilian exports to India. So not only this is like almost like a north south relationship but we have very concentrated exports on the Brazilian side and very diversified on the Indian side.
India services that India exports to Brazil include software, telecommunications, IT, business processes, pharmaceutical research, industrial engineering while Brazil exports professional services, transportation, logistics services, uh tourism, um and cultural services. So even in the services structure there there's a relationship there that's really close to the fact that industrialization in India it's is much more intense much more advanced compared to the Brazilian case.
Well, I I have to mention the Americanosur agreement because it's been mentioned many times by the ambassadors by Manuel, but I would highlight the fact that the 450 products traded are nothing compared to the 10,000 products traded. This gives you uh like a relative idea of the importance. Of course there's there's a negotiation in process etc. But we should also consider not only the 30 something uh items in the current agreements. This should be expanded to include services uh investment policies in strategic sectors especially es especially why would it be interesting for the two countries to intensify the relationships for Brazil Brazil has to consider that India is seen as by many analysts as one of the main like world economy This means an obvious opportunity to diversify the market for their own products, for their own exports. But it also provides access to technology that are of the interest of emerging economies for production um complimentarity for India. This relationship means more presence in Brazil which would facilitate access to the wider Latin American market. Of course, it would also increase the uh security in terms of access to food, energy and critical minerals, access to agricultural technology and expertise with uh biotechnology and tropical diseases.
Now, how could we help intensify the bilateral links? Apart from trade facilitation, apart from widening the expanding the list of items in the uh trade agreement, well, I can mention two points. One is the exchange of experiences.
Brazil has accumulated expertise in largecale farming and biotechnology.
On the other hand, India has developed small holder innovation.
There's a clear space for expert the exchange of expertise there. Brazil has experience in ethanol technology and clean energy transition. Also, India has uh stimulated the production of sustainable fuels.
The two countries have serious issues with large diversification areas which would be natural topic for the exchange of expertise. you we could also think of something that's critical for Brazilian agriculture especially given this the recent conflicts the need to develop natural fertilizers and exchange of expertise and joint efforts could contribute substantially in this direction and then there's also the topic of complimentarity India has obvious comparative advantages in the pharmaceutical industry. We've heard before that India is the is the world's pharmacy. On the on the other hand, Brazil has accumulated experience with public health universal coverage.
It would be a natural complimentarity in my opinion. Also, India is well known for its comparative advantage in in in the digital processing area and here it's impossible to say would be well the the areas would be because you open up an infinite range of opportunities for cooperation there. The two countries have accumulated experience in digital identity and digital payment systems. This is another natural area for the exchange of experiences.
Brazil also has an experience of having built six satellites together with China. India has a policy, a space policy that's really dynamic. It's really low cost.
using their own technology.
And if so, then we could think that joint efforts between both countries could help uh build satellites with specific purposes like monitoring the certification and and other areas.
That might as well be an area for complimentarities useful for both countries. Of course, when you think of opening up the markets, uh removing barriers and so on, some sectors will celebrate the opportunity to access wider market while other sectors will complain because about the same the same fact without going into much detail.
In principle, which sectors would be more sensitive to a a a a more free trade environment?
Well, these sectors, >> professor, just two minutes you have, please see uh sugar, sugar, ethanol, agricultural products. uh these are subject to phytoanitary barriers, chemicals, rubber, textile, steel, petrochemicals, critical minerals and digital issues or topics. I want to end with another message that both countries are me members of the same same groups breaks IPSA G20 etc. So there's a potential there for joint action and let me give you an example. India and Mercur have recently signed agreements with the European Union.
Uh the EU is is known for being like uh like a like a source of barriers.
So coordinating efforts to build joint positions, negotiation positions could be really helpful for both countries in this sense. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you. So thank you professor and it's a really excellent presentation and uh what you have highlight about Indian economy and Brazil and uh the kind of complimentaries we have and uh in terms of this fantastic uh this is one thing that you have more FDI is coming uh in Brazil. This is the one point. Yes. Um the agriculture export mainly from the Brazil to India is the one one of the you can say uh your Brazil export to India is more concentrated than in vice versa whereas India's export are diversified.
And the last uh thing you have mentioned rightly that uh yes we have trade agreement with the EU and Marasur also have and the EU is famous for it green protectionism the EU deforestation regulation and these other things and at the WTO India and Brazil keep raising lot of questions in committee on agriculture on these issues on this we are together that we are facing the challenges uh in terms of the trade And uh thank you. Thank you very much.
Uh now we move to next presentation.
Uh next presentation in Dr. by Dr. Ignesia from Uruguay. Uh uh if I go by the timeline I we should have finished our uh this session by by the this time but yes we are bit uh not bit but yes we are uh not uh tracking the time. Uh I now invite Dr. Ignasia from Uruguay uh for his presentation. Few words about uh Dr. Ignasia. He's a postoc in economic integration uh and doctor in international relation and masters in integration and international trade. He is also a senior researcher and professor of the school of international business and integration of the Catholic University of Uruguay. Dean of the school of business administration of the Catholic University. He's a visiting professor at universities of Spain, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Colombia, India, China and he also direct he was also the director of integration and international trade of chamber of industry of Uruguay. It's a really impressive CV Dr. Ignasio over to you and just and Dr. Sorry I'm making intervention please be precise we are uh running a bit late. Uh okay thank you.
Thank you.
It is a pleasure to be with all of you.
Um I want to thank and also Fernando Massi for having invited us and Kad for to this event such as my predecessor presenter said it is a very interesting event. I want to share my screen as well. So go directly to the point.
I want to see if you can you see the presentation. Yes. Um I can now see it.
Yes. Very well. Very well. Let us then go uh make uh move forward. Why India? I believe Renato and Manuel have said it so clearly.
He's asking uh for full screen and apologies. Professor said yes very well.
Why India?
We you all know this which is what's happening with India's population and the market in India. The economy like Renato said is a very significant economic growth that we need to take advantage of with growth rates like Manuel said that are quite high of about 6 to 7% um that is surpassing China's economic growth. What will India be in 2050? We need to project ourselves because India which is already in a transformation process which is very relevant.
It will have 25 to 30 years of surprises that would be very relevant that we need to um be ready to tackle them. India is an actor that is still not that very relevant in international trade. Look at the percentages of what India is in the international trade of goods. It is something this will change if the um growth rates of trade of goods and services are higher than that of international growth. So in any case what we can observe here is that there is a potential there in terms of growth and what will India be at an international level. No about the services I believe they were also mentioned by the ambassadors.
It is important to me to understand what's happening when it comes to services and how do we connect uh that is in terms of services and investment in services. We will look at the Uruguayan case in this regard as well and the important of Tata is set up in Uruguay and it's an entry door that is very important to India. These are the growth rate. What has happened with services? I do not want to dwell on this. And this is the share of India in services. And of course, India represents more in services than growth. It is an economy that's more dynamic towards services than towards goods. There are of course some interesting subsectors of services in Merkosour that I want to insist that this is a sector that is very not studied as much as it needs to be as all experts know. We have statistic limitations to study it deeply. But in any case we need to h to understand how to move forward and and recognize and understand the connection between India and measur also in services. Now India and Latin America, India and Latin America just I just want to say the trade is very low. It is very low if we compare the the with the US and and Europe and China. So there is such an important potential on India that has become a wake in international trade and also in its relation with Latin America.
This was also mentioned by Reato with Brazil and also Manuel with Argentina there is a a trade that was it's quite complimentary India that is changing its product productive uh structure so it's selling more and more technology and that it continues to be although there are some some industrial products like Lenato said Latin America continues to export report to India that raw material commodities agroindustrial.
So th this is what data tells us today.
Now this is important because it's it's connected to Brazil the relationship between India and Latin America. Brazil is key not only what Renato said but what the importance of Brazil in all groups rais G20 the interest of the reform of the permanent council before the United Nations there is a very relevant interest but also the trade look at the importance that um Brazil has in terms of the total of trade both uh the exports as well as the imports but how interesting look Mexico, Mexico buys more and more from India in whatever is related to regional chains and inputs that replace slowly to later export to the US. So we generally say and Renato might agree with me. We say that the main competitor of China was Latin America. Um the US or the or the European Union. The main competitor of China in Latin America is India. If we project these data, India will have a very strong role in the competition with India. If we look what we are starting to buy from India and what it will end happening in the um following season okay just a summary a conclusion the importance of Latin America or India I don't think India has never had a strategy with Latam they starting to visualize the Latin America countries are mainly suppliers of oil there is an important cooperation future cooperation in terms of energy. Latam is a growing market for India, no doubt. Agriculture cooperation is low, but I'm sure is key for food security with players such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Agriculture we should should be operating much more. Latam also pro supplies critical minerals to India and I believe there are spaces that are not used by India. For example, India is it is absent in eclac aladdi development banks of the region. India that is absent of the trade blocks, commercial blocks and subregional groups. I believe that India should become more present in the region. This is something that I believe needs to happen and it's starting to change. The importance of India to LATAM of course I think it's focused mainly in Brazil. of Brazil is the one that generated this um uh preference agreement that is so significant it it's a very significant agreement that has cooperated to trade 300 products some of those products were in zero for example in Uruguay we're only taking advantage in one single product it's like not having a a trade agreement with all due respect we really need to improve our agreement Brazil is fostering this relationship mentioned Brazil does have joint strategic investment joint ventures that are very interesting. I believe that we need to give steady steps in political will of merc towards India. India is an alternative supplier of many products that are being questioned by the US and the European Union. India has a role in the international context which is interesting to have a political commercial place and the fixed commercial agreement that we need to improve and at least have it have to improve it at a Chilean level.
We are very far from Chile yet and we are very we have lots of expectations as to what happens with Peru because if we look at the agreements that India has signed in the past year particularly with the European Union recently there is a change of India in its position now about Uruguay in particular what's the situation with Uruguay here is a framework agreement Lenato has shared about this Manuel too it is being said that we close to open negotiations.
Well, in the past uh meeting and it was not even mentioned. So, we are saying that it's there but it's not really there. We need to foster it.
Particularly Paraguay and Uruguay, I believe has an have an important role because Brazil it's going to be quite difficult to open his relationship with India. They still have sectors that can be damaged and they they made a lot of effort with the European Union. Forget Lula, forget the mand the president. I believe that the Brazilian structure does not allow it to become more open.
Paraguay and Uruguay of course could do it. Now the bilateral trade between Merosura and India it's similar but trade between Merkosur and India is concentrated in very few products and is very low for a million for a market that is 1.4 4 billion inhabitants very extremely low with very few products. Look at the uh the products we um export. This is information provided by India. Is it there are difference between what India says and Europe wise says India says that they import uh petrol but Euro uh fuel I mean fuel he corrects himself der after the processing done by Uruguay India reported Uruguay doesn't wood wool and some food products are exported um wood explains the large percentage of products that Uruguay exports to India Now imports of Uruguay from India are much more diversified. We're buying vehicles, chemical products, um oils, uh uh clothing. It's much more diversified imports than exports.
So we have here uh what's reported by Uruguay. There is a difference to that reported by India that ex is explained by fuel. And this is my last slide or this is these are the Uruguayan companies that operate with India. So I want to say in 2025 only 20 companies operated with India more than $50,000.
Look at the amount that's nothing for an operation. However 20 companies now the import companies of course are growing. There's more than 300. So we would need to study what's happening there. But I mean with the potential that that we have to export food uh it it it is amazing to see s such small figures and I'm closing with this. I believe it's needed to deepen the mercosurindia agreement at least have it at the level of Chile. Although we have expectations as to what's happening with Peru, the change with the European Union, we should not uh rule out bilaterality.
Uh perhaps Paraguay and Uruguay can establish bilateral relationship and make more progress. Maybe Brazil cannot do that. Merkosur and India agreement has not had impact in none of our countries with in the bilateral agreement. It's a more of a symbolic agreement related with interest in Brazil at the time. Merosu does not have a strategy with India beyond its connection with Brazil. We expect a greater approach of India towards Merosur through a lai a clack. We need to help India to get closer to measur.
And regarding Uruguay, what do I see? I see that we have a urgent need of deepen trade with India. We are wasting many opportunities. Very few products, very few companies export to India. There is greater diversification in imports. In the case of Europe, why wood is a main product that has changed the level of trade between uh as of 2019.
wool and some food products perhaps some industrial products such as um stainless steel and iron waste insignificant India does inform occasional imports of fuel that is not part of our statistics.
Uruguay could and should um make progress in a service agreement with India. We need to take advantage of the presence of Tata in Uruguay very relevant. Enhance the commercial presence of India consulate support the embassy. We need India um it concluded setting up of its m embassy. We need to have a strategy a strategy to deepen our connection with India and that is not being done at the level we need. And we need al lastly we need to work more with the importing companies to understand their experience and they can help us understand how to operate with a country that is not easy to broaden the very low number of Euran companies that are exporting to India.
That's all for me today from me today.
Thank you very much.
>> Thank you. Thank you Dr. Ignasia.
Thank you Ignasia. is uh really fantastic uh presentation and uh you have highlighted uh uh the relation between uh specific uh you talk about India and Uruguay why there are a lot of potential still we are not able to capitalize on those things and within Marasur how the trade is bit uh uh you can say not balanced so these are the few pointers and uh yes uh lot of things we can work together.
One message you have very specifically said that we need to be more engaged even bilaterally or uh through regional uh through Marasu. Uh that is the point well taken. Um and you also shown the data that why you are saying these things you have given the evidence for these things. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
And now we are going uh to our last presentation by uh professor Balon and uh she's from Paraguay.
Uh she's a bachelor of arts in economics and master in economic from Catholic University and master in economics. Uh she also a research member uh of CEP.
several publication on topic related to regional development, international economics, uh foreign trade, competitiveness and uh innovation and uh yes she also one thing she bringing is the some kind of gender balance in the presentation. Thank you uh Dr. Balon over to you.
Thanks professor. Good morning everyone.
Good afternoon for those joining the streaming uh of this event from India.
I'll share my presentation with you now.
In this presentation, I'll be covering uh trade and investment between Paraguay and India >> with an emphasis on the main >> P. Can you do the full screen of your presentation and also can you wrap it up in 10 minutes just for the next session?
Thank you.
Like I said, this presentation will cover trade and investment between Paraguay in India with an emphasis on the main challenges and opportunities for uh deepening the relationship this economic relationship. That is the purpose of this presentation is to give you an overview of the current situation of the bilateral relationship and the possibilities for expansion in terms of trade and investment.
Now as to the content or the context we need to say that India has consolidated as a rapid growing fast growing economy world economy and it's more and more presence present in Latin America the trade between Mosun and India has also expanded from the 2000s in the context of the current uh preference agree agreement since in force since 2009. It's important to highlight that both trade and investment from India in the region continues to concentrate in Brazil and to a lesser lesser extent in Argentina. So in this context, Paraguay still sees a very uh small uh relationship with a potential for export uh expansion and also for investment attraction.
Now where do we stand today? In this chart, you can see that bilateral trade between India and Paraguay has expanded in the last two decades. Although with very different trajectories in terms of exports and imports, exports of Paraguay show an important growth for some periods, especially since the year 2014, but also a more unstable evolution with a sharp drop in 2024.
However, imports from from India show a more steady growth trajectory with a clearly higher level than than Paraguin exports in 2024.
On the other hand, Paraguayan exports are more concentrated in very few products while imports from India show a more diversified base. In summary, bilateral trade between India and Paraguay has expanded but with a more dynamic uh behavior on the import side than on the export side.
In terms of the exchange profile, you can see a very we can see a very important asymmetry here. On the one hand, Paraguay exports to India are highly concentrated in soybean oil which represented on average 93% of shipments between 2004 and 2024. Also the growing e or the growth of exports was slower in the last years with a drop in 2024. On the other hand, imports from India shows a much more diversified structure with products like plastics uh pl uh vehicles, fuel, machinery predominating and exports. These exports grew almost 40 times between 20 2000 2004 and 2024. In general terms, Paraguay ex exports a very reduced um and concentrated uh basket while India exports high uh technology.
In terms of uh trade opportunities, you can see um we can see a margin room for expanding exports of brain products that are already present in the market like soybean, oil, uh metals, metal waste and uh agrochemical supplies. We can also see opportunities for products that are not very developed yet like soy soya beans, sesame, paper, cardboard and others. To classify the uh export opportunities, the ITC uses a model that assesses the supply uh the demand, the bilateral relations between the economies, the GDP growth, population and others. At this point, the idea here is Paraguay cannot not only can expand their exports but also while divers diversifying their export offer. From the other point of view, India has become a very relevant supplier for Paraguay in terms of industrial manufacturers. Although there's still room for more expansion into uh several sectors, the products with the most potential include mobile phones, agrochemicals, motorcycles, organic chemicals, uh tires and for buses, trucks and uh pharmaceutical products.
So this means that there's still room for deepening this insertion in different industrial se sectors including technology.
Now in terms of direct foreign investment the presence of India in Latin America is still very reduced or very minimal.
The in the case of Mercur accumulated numbers between 2015 and 2024 added up only to 796 million with Brazil concentrating capturing almost 99% of those investments.
Paraguay received only 0.9 million and with a stock of $3.4 million in 2024.
Therefore, the most important message here is that Paraguay still does not significantly participate in Indian participation into the block.
But in spite of this low participation in terms of investments, we can identify several areas for potential for attracting Indian Indian investments in Paraguay, including manufacturing for exports to Merkosur, renewable energies, especially solar and bofuel, far pharmaceuticals and distribution hubs and logistics and infrastructure projects. So in this in these areas, Paraguay can be seen not only as an internal market but as a logistic production hub with a regional projection.
In terms of the challenges, we see many of them. The deepening of the economic tr relationship, we have logistics and infrastructure costs.
They did dependency on the waterways, the port infrastructure limitations also trade and customs facilitation. We have other challenges related to climate uh investments climate and the mobility of human capital which is all necessary for adding more technological complexity. Finally, uh this brief uh diagnostic.
This is an action agenda targeted or geared at strengthening this commercial relationship. This can be summarized into four action lines. First we need to deepen the trade framework between Makosur and India so that more Paraguayan products have better access to Indian markets especially agroindustrial products. This includes not only tariffs but also discussions on the recognition of sanitary phytoanitary requirements that are a barrier today for many products. The second line of action, we need to reduce the logistics uh costs that harm the compet the competitivity of Paraguay in such a decent market as India. The Paraguay Parana hydrowway or waterway needs to improve and and reduce the delay and to increase their uh cargo capacity and the Bio by ocean road is an alternative actually to connect our country with Pacific ports and to shorten times towards Asia. To this we need to add the need to modernize the customs facilities and to digitize uh paperwork to lower trade uh costs.
The third line of action is diversifying exports and to strengthen uh capacities.
Today the relationship with India relies on the soybean oil specifically. So we need to promote other products uh and to including uh sectoral studies. So this shouldn't be limited to uh business rounds and missions but accompany this with sectoral analysis to see which products we should be promoting and what barriers they are facing.
We need to take advantage of course of Indian corporation in terms of energy technology and services. Lastly, last line of action, we need to create the conditions to attract Indian investments with higher legal security.
So the procedures need to be streamlined for investors.
Um in summary, data shows that relationship the relationship between India and Paraguay is still really limited but it does present very concrete potential uh for expansion.
We need to transform this incipient relationship into a more strategic more diversified relationship in articulation with Merosur regional spaces. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Uh thanks a lot professor Baron. Uh it's a really very good presentation and uh your suggestion the four action point which you which you highlighted that uh especially tariff and non-tariff barrier then reducing the logistic cost and how we can efficiently use the maritime then diversifying export and then strengthening the investment environment that's uh uh that's really well taken pointers from uh your side and uh now already we are late and if I request audience if there is any question please uh you can I just check it.
Okay, there no question at the moment. Uh if anyone Okay. Uh so there is no question. Uh I think I just uh uh wrap uh wrap up that uh for the presentation uh all the four presentation um it they highlighted the need to strengthen the relationship between India and Merkasur to that the export from the merkasur to India is more you can say concentrated then within Merkasur it is also being highlighted it is more dominant by uh uh uh dominance of the Brazil that's the another point which came out uh beside this reducing the logistic cost and uh strengthening the investment environment uh that is uh that is well taken I uh what we uh request that once we get all the recording and uh we will also do the more analysis and if anyone um have any question please uh uh keep write in the chat or also email to us uh we will respond to this. Thank you very much and with this we are closing this session. I congratulate all the presentation uh presenter for their fantastic presentation. Thank you very much. And with this we close this session and we move to the next session. We I know that it's uh there are lot of questions. I also have lot of questions and query but uh given the time constraints let's move to the another session and also try to listen the Indian story also. Thank you very much.
Thanks professor Sachin Kumar Sharma for this panel. uh a round of applause, virtual applause uh for the panelists for the quality of their presentations.
And now we start the next panel, the second panel which uh is going to cover the topic of expanding the India Merosur BPA perspectives or outlooks and challenges.
The panel will be moderated by Fernando Massi. He's a master in international relationships, founder director of the center for analysis and dissemination of the Paraguan economy, Kadep.
He's been advisor to the ministries of economy and finance in Paraguay. He's been consultant to uh SEPAL, UNP and other uh organizations with over 100 publications on international trade. We give him the floor now. Uh but before I want to tell the audience that all the questions you may ask in the chat after the end of the second panel we'll be commenting on those questions and giving the moderators and the panelists the room for for answering those questions.
So please leave your questions in the chat in YouTube.
Go ahead Dr. Massi. Pleasure.
Thank you very much Marcelo. Let's start then this second panel and about the expansion of the preferential trade agreement between India and Merosour and for that we have other presenters.
Firstly, we have Fernando Rio from Brazil and he is a master in economics by the Catholic University of Rio de Janeo. He is senior researchers of IPA institute of uh research of applied economics as well as a professor of that very institute coordinator of international trade of the international the department of international studies. was an institution, professor of international relations of the Catholic University in different subjects all related to trade and investment. So very well, Professor Fernando Vido, we'd like to welcome you and you have the floor.
Um he is mute.
If you can let him know that his microphone very well, your microphone is in mute.
Hello Good morning. Good afternoon.
nations around the world. So I think it's very important for me and for India for many other countries to try to address the the matter of trying to enhance the agreement to to to make any efforts that are possible for trying to to to balance the effects from uh uh this trade tension especially from the US and also China. So uh my presentation will talk about the Ninja preferential trade agreement some facts p perspectives and challenges and uh the measu preferential trade agreement was signed in New Delhi on January 2004 has been in effect since 2009 and we have negotiations on way to broaden their agreement And surely the uncertainties related to US trade strategy uh the China rising influence and also the weakening of WTO of the multilateral trade systems uh are some uh aspects that are are driving these efforts and clearly geopolitics seems to be in some sense something more important even than the economic motivations.
for uh the the broadening of this agreement and for this the this efforts to try to bring Marosuma India uh near in in trade terms. Uh during a visit to New Delhi on October 2025, the Brazilian Ministry of Development and Trade announced a new round of negotiations to broaden the PTA. This was reinforced by President Lula during a visit in India in February this year. uh even though uh there was no relevant news about the negotiations since then, they should be closed by October 2026 as was announced by uh the Brazilian ministry last year.
Uh Maros website there are no recent reference to this agreement or negotiations.
So we have to uh to to follow uh and see what we what will happen in the the the coming months. uh well it's a very narrow agreement as was already uh showed by my colleagues 442 products over by Marosu and 349 with preference margins of only 10% only 13 products of with 100% margin and by the engine side and 450 products only 21 with 100% preference margin and 286 with 20% margins. Uh Merosu represents only 1.4% of in total imports but in goods covered by this by the agreement. This share is 14.7%.
Is a very significant number but almost all of the covered imports are of soybean oil despite of a preference margin of only 10%. Uh this uh table shows indes import from Mosul, the total from Mosul. Uh the values from each of Merosu country and the total imported uh by India from all the world. We compare uh the average 20134 to the average 2025 425.
uh the total imports the imports covered by the agreement and the ones not covered. So we see that uh in in the average 2024 25 we had uh India imported $3.7 billion on of the products covered by the agreement. uh uh the largest spots was from Argentina 2.3 billion and Brazil with 1.3 billion Paraguay there are uh uh minor uh values and uh in the last lines we see the growth rates of each of the flows the total import flows the flows covered from the agreement we can see that the flows covered uh have 129% growth between the two uh periods. Uh that's much higher than the 55.9% growth of the total imports. And here we show that soy beans are more than 90% of uh India's imports fromu of the the products covered by the agreement. So it's very concentrated uh in the part of the Merosu in represents 5.3% of Merosu's total import. Uh but in goods covered by the agreement this share is 12.7% and more than half of the cover imports related to machinery and equipment. And here also we see uh the uh the value of the imports uh the total imported from India by Merosu, the total imported by each of the Marosur countries and the total imported by uh the four Mosu countries. Uh we see that in the average 2020 23 24 it was $482 million and the growth rate of the total imports of the uh province co agreement was lower than the imports of the other uh of the total imports. Uh and here we see that more than half of imports are related to machinery equipment but they're also imports uh of chemicals uh of cotton of uh furniture and other so it's much more diversified though the the total value is is much lower than the value of imports made by India. Uh it's important to see the tariff profiles and India has a very high tariffs in agri food products and also in some industrial ones like motor vehicles wearing apparel leather and shoes. uh while Meru more is more protectionist in industrial sectors as a whole especially more labor intensive ones textiles app shoes uh and also more of a high especially automobiles machinery equipment furniture and other manufacturing and see here you can see the tariff profiles by type of products and by sectors and we see that India has very high uh tariff rates related to agriculture products uh but lower than Marosuo in industrial products uh and considering the sectors we see the very high rates supplied by India in agriculture products forestry uh food and beverage and also in uh wearing apparel leather shoes and motor vehicles um uh Some years ago, we made a report with some simulations of MEOSU of the effects of a Merosu in agreement that would be uh complete with considering zero tariffs in bilateral trade in the period of 10 years. So a complete free trade agreement. uh defects from Brazil would be ne negligible in terms of GDP 07% the total exports would grow 1.2% the total imports would grow 3.8% 28% and the most benefit sectors in Brazil economy in terms of production gains would be non feros metals minerals motor vehicles and parts and transport equipment foods metals wood products agriculture so we see basically uh some uh products uh that are related to commodities but also in mortikos and other transport equipment especially the the the airplanes that the Brazil produces and exports. And the most affected sector, the mo the ones that would have the biggest uh uh losses in terms of production would be textiles and apparel, leather and shoes, metal products, electrical equipment and oil products. uh uh so some uh sectors that where the the indust economy have is more competitive uh we made out the simulation considering uh Argentina Paraguay as a group and the effect of this uh FTA would be negligible in terms of GDP the total exports of these countries would grow 1% the total reports 1.6%.
And the most benefit sectors would be oil and gas, minerals, oil, seeds, sugar, food and beverage. So all of them uh products related to commodity production. And the most affected sector with the the the losers from this free trade agreement would be other transport equipment, electric equipment, vehicles, textiles and apparel and chemicals and and consider the effects on the in ones economy GDP only 07% total exports would go 1.2 and total imports 3.2 to it. And the most benefited sectors would be textiles and apparel, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, electric equipment, rubber and plastics.
And the most affected, the most the one that you lose the most would be ironic gas, meat, sugar, cereals and other uh agriculture products. So this would be the effects of the simulation. we are thinking about may new simulations and I think that's very important considering uh the the more recent developments in bilateral trade uh uh so in the discussion of opportunities and challenges well the opportunities are related to the uh two big democratic countries in fact five group of meosu and in with clear complimentaries in their economic structures as was already noted by my colleagues in the first uh in the first presentations uh the rapid growth of India's economy uh the fact that India is not exactly industrial powerhouse like China that that could threaten the industrial sector in Marosu the the effects would be much more specific and concentrated uh huge opportunity in agri food trade and services. Agricu and services for India. Uh the importance of diversifying trade relations beyond US, European Union and China especially in the current scenario of rising tensions and yeah it's true that the economic effect seems to be limit as we see in the simulations showed but the CGM model departs from the current state of TWS. that are very limited in volume and scope below potential. So we have a reasons to believe that the economic effects could be much more relevant much more significant that the ones that were considered in the simulations uh and the challenges uh first in just protection is stance in agri food sector and also in some industrial sectors uh by the by miracle suicide uh the protection uh protection is in industrial sector especially in the more labor intensive ones where India could fry the exports.
Uh the competitiveness of India in some service sectors versus protection assistance in Merosu uh in the service sector in many relevant service sectors.
Uh the fact that there are not clear possibilities of creating value value chains between the partners. this something that is being considered very important in especially uh in the uh the recent uh great trade agreements that are that are being signed. So it's not very clear what are the real possibilities of creating value chains between India and Marosu.
uh the the fact that India has more nationalist stance on developing strategies and the lack of common ground between current governments of mer countries including in terms of geopolitical alignment for example uh the distinction between the alignment with the United States or the alignment with the bricks countries.
So this is something that can uh make some uh bring some difficult for uh discussing and negotiating uh the agreements uh uh uh at this time with the current governments.
Concluding no doubt there's a great potential for trade investments uh uh for growing between uh in my consume but the countries need to define clear strategies to explore this potential. we can see at till this moment what are clearly the strategies or what are the what are the the the the gains and losses and the real possibilities uh we can explore in the bilateral relation uh it's necessary to deepen the mutual knowledge about economic structures policies and also cultural characteristics of the countries and finally the importance to develop more academic and policy studies to understand what actually are the greatest barriers to bilateral trade and investments and so that we can tackle and we can bring these aspects this this the greatest barriers to the table of negotiations of this uh broaden agreement.
Thank you very much. Professor, it's a really interesting position that of yours on the commercial relations of Paraguay in India in terms of the data you provided Brazil and India probably about the participation of this trade within the BPA. Okay. imports and everything that has to be with the tar of protectionism on both sides in Marosur and in India and about differentiated sectors in terms of the tariff protection the results of uh the institute is a a very important exercise when it comes to it's a key exercise I think to analy analyze the the wins and and and the losses, winners and losers losers.
See how this can contribute to economic growth in each country both Mercur and India.
Finally, in terms of challenges and opportunities, the last point you mentioned very important ones actually several points although there's fear now in large countries especially like Argentina and Brazil about competitiveness of industrial products from India however India is not like you said it's not uh an industrial powerhouse so there's is a possibility to diversify trade relationships. A big opportunity for Marasur there to continue increasing their exports especially in the agri food sector.
something important as well when you talked about the challenges.
Uh although India represents a way uh like a path for diversification for mercosur so that trade is not really concentrated around China and and Europe only. But a huge challenge is that there is no common ground. There is no common uh point between the mercosur governments and India of sorry in mercur countries in terms of the projection their projection strategies because they have different geopolitical positions now in the mercosur countries in relation to the US policy in particular. So this I believe is um an important challenge especially when it comes to diversifying trade relationships and when it comes to trying to understand a country like India a bit more.
This needs to be studied more to be this needs to be internalized more both on the side of India and Merosur. We need to know our economies to learn about our economies and our policies more and more. We need more studies to provide this support needed for the negotiations so that we can find ways to cooperate such as we get a win-win situation between both blocks.
Now uh we'll go to the presentation by professor Pankash Bashish from RAIS in India. His associate professor coordinator of the Asian Indian Center at RAIS with over 15 years experience in research on international trade and policies, technology, work economy, applied econometry. He briefly served at the Indian Council for Research of International Relations and has cooperated with organizations like the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and others.
He has a PhD in economy and he's recognized by his research on India trade, Indian trade and with many books and publications I give the floor to Dr. Pankash Pashish. Now >> thank you uh thank you professor Masi for your kind words. Uh I'm the last speaker. uh and we have seen five wonderful presentation uh and since we all are talking about trade and investment between India and Makasu country uh so I'm afraid that most of the things uh I wanted to say has already been uh uh talked about so please bear with me I will be repeating few things I will try uh not to repeat things uh but I'm I'm afraid that uh some of the things I will be uh repeating. Uh so once again uh thank you so much uh to I mean my own uh organization my DG for giving me this opportunity as well as uh to professor Masi uh to be a part of this virtual uh event on India Marasur economic relations and share my views. uh so in uh next 10 to 15 minutes uh whatever time I have I would like to uh structure my discussion about around these five broad things. First I will be briefly talking about uh the background and architecture of current PTA. Uh and then I will be kind of analyzing uh the trade between India and Marasur in the context of PT PTA. Uh the idea is to basically see whether uh trade has improved and there has been any structural change or not. And then specifically uh I will be devoting couple of slides on the effectiveness of PTA. Uh finally uh I would uh focus on trade potential which has not been realized between India and Bakasur and briefly talked about the constraints and the sensitivity which are kind of uh uh we will face if we want to expand our trade relations and finally I'll be kind of uh sharing my two cents on uh expanding the Marasur India trade relations. uh so I think uh uh this slide uh actually clearly shows why India and Marcasur are important for each other. Uh both the region if you put together they account for roughly around uh 8% of global GDP. Uh at the same time we account for roughly one fifth of the global humanity. Of course, Marcasur as a as is at a very high per capita income level. India is growing very fast and given the the ongoing uh restructuring in the global uh uh economic system. Uh these attributes uh provide us uh an a solid reason to kind of expand our trade investment relations. Uh now if you look at uh the bilateral engagement between India and Marcasur countries uh so India has been uh very quick to establish diplomatic relation with Marasul countries at a bilateral level uh soon after uh we became independent and expanding economic relation has been uh a topmost priority. uh different joint trade and commercial uh commissions were set up to kind of uh expand the economic relations. Uh they broadly focus on trade, agriculture, industry and technical cooperation.
But a focus discussion on trade started happening sorry after the Marasur came into existence.
So India started engaging with Marasur in 1995 and as my fellow panelists have I already talked about that in 2004 we signed a preferential trade agreement and which has been operational since 2009.
Uh I think uh this point has already been mentioned. If you look at the Merkasur PTA at best it can be described very limited in its coverage.
So my fellow panelists have mentioned that around 450 products are covered but you know over the period HS classification has changed. So if you look at the current HS classification then there are roughly around 452 products on which Merkasurus is providing the preferential market access to Indian imports and then uh India is providing market preferential market access to Merkasur on 462 commodities.
uh and then uh if you look at the margin of preference actually majority of the uh tariff line on which Merkasur is providing concessional market access uh is concentrated at 10% in comparison to India in comparison to this India is providing concession or concession of around 20% at the applied uh tariff rate on majority of the goods there are few products on which there is a kind of 100% preferences provided uh and uh the the tariff the coverage we already know that it's primarily focus on the primary product uh it there is no uh inclusion of services investment and by and large uh this PTA uh lacks the modern FDA disciplines uh now what has happened to the trade I think I'll be very quick here because my fellow panelist has talked about it. So if you look at the exports of India to Marasur country, we see that there is an erratic trend. But if we see from 2009 and onward, uh there has been an improvement. Uh in 2009, India was exporting uh goods worth slightly about $2 billion which increased to 8 billion.
Uh in line with this uh we also have witnessed increase in uh imports from Masur. Uh it was uh in 2009 it was uh roughly $3.5 billion which increased to roughly around $3 billion. Of course in 2022 uh we hit the peak and after that we have seen marginal decline. uh and in terms of uh uh share of Macasur in India India's trade uh we have seen w we have witnessed marginal improvement in 2008 uh just before the signing of PDA marasur accounted for roughly around 1.1% of our global trade which has now increased to 1.46 46. Uh but the question is if we simply uh do some sort of trend analysis uh we can see that uh there has not been a positive break in trend. In fact uh if you look at if you simply compare the growth rate of uh increase in trade uh pre209 and post 2009 then from 2000 till 2009 actually uh we did better. Primar facy it seems we have not witnessed much of impetus in bilateral trade after the signing of PTA. Uh this point has already been mentioned. Uh if you look at the country composition it is dominated by Brazil and Argentina of course given their economic size but there is some sort of a diversification if you compare the 2008 and 204 24. So some sort of a diversification but still dominated by these two uh bigger economies within Marasur. Uh export import structure has already been talked about. uh so basically here uh India's exports have become uh much more diversified uh in not only in terms of number of goods product exported in 2010 Indian exports to Marcus were concentrated in 109 1,94 44 45 products and over the period we have roughly added more 400 more products uh to our export basket uh and similarly uh if we see the share of uh top 10 commodities at six-digit level in 2010 it was more than 58 57% which has now declined to 40%. So as my previous speakers have highlighted that Indian exports to Marasur over the period have become much more diversified. Uh I think this composition has already been talked about so I won't spend much of time on this. Uh in terms of import again uh it has been uh very clearly identified that imports from Marcasur continues to be highly concentrated. There is some notable shift but again uh the importance of petroleum oil has declined but we see a huge surge in crude soya bean oil. So basically uh the one product which is kind of now accounts for roughly around 50% of Marcasu's exports to India. Uh so in terms of import there continues to be a very high dependence on few products. Now the question is uh what has been the contribution of PTA in in our overall uh trade? Uh you know as uh as we know that the coverage of PTA is very limited. So what I try to do is I try to see what has been the trend of import and export in commodities on which uh we are providing preferential market access to each other and then how what has been their contri contribution of these product in overall import and export.
Now there uh I mean actually the story is not uh really impressive because if you look at India's exports to Makasur uh in 2010 this is the time when this is the first time soon after uh the the implementation of PTA uh these 452 product uh their total exports to Makasur country was 10 were was at around $2 billion and it has kind of remained uh stable at at similar travel with marginal increase uh but as comparison to this uh the total export has grown at a much higher rate so the relative contribution of these product in India's exports to mercur has actually declined roughly around 50% to now around 26%. Uh so basically uh the interesting thing is when we kind of enter into negotiation for PTA uh the tariff line which were included in PTA uh they accounted for more than twothird of Indian exports to Makasur but over the period their importance has declined and one reason could be because the margin margin of preference is actually very low. So marasur provides margin in excess of five 10% on most of these commodities. Uh but in case of marasur actually uh there has been some improvement. So if you look at the contribution of commodities uh covered under PTA their share was roughly around below 30% in 2010 which has now increased to 41%. So primacy it seems uh PTA has kind of helped more marasur country visav India though India's exports to marasur have increased but they have increased in products which are not covered under PTA. So we can say basically it's driven more driven by the market forces rather than the policy measures which we have introduced.
Now another way uh to look at the effectiveness of PTA is to see uh whether these PTA provisions has helped uh India and Merkasur respectively to increase their exports global exports.
Uh so there if you look at Merkasur the picture is actually very clear. So these products which are covered under uh merc under PTA uh as I have already mentioned uh their combined uh uh exports from Marasur to India was less than $1 billion in 2006. It increased to less than 1.4 1.44 billion in 2010 and in 2024 uh it stands roughly around $4 billion. So there has been a kind of uh three billion increase in the exports of uh goods which are part of PTA from Merkasur to India. Uh and if you look at the Merkasurus global exports in these product uh the increase has been only roughly around 5 billion. So out of this 5 billion three billion uh surge has come from India. So it means uh uh so around twothird of the exports which Marasur has witnessed in in these product is actually coming from Indian market. So in a way uh PTA has been contributing uh to to the uh increase in uh in in the global exports of of these particular product. Uh but same is not uh the case with India. So uh these things actually shows that uh if at all this PTA has helped uh uh it has helped uh uh to kind of sustain or boost uh the exports from Marcasur to India to some extent. Uh but Indian exports uh to Marasur are not kind of driven by these preferential market access.
Now uh the question is and then then the reason is quite clear. I mean uh the margin of preference as I mentioned is very low. But the question is do we have unrealized trade potential between India and Marcus. Uh my my fellow panelist uh uh uh Dr. Fernando has already given a very impressive presentation using uh uh uh CG modeling and he has highlighted what kind of uh gains we can have from uh uh expanding the PD and going for FDA. So what uh and then there are different methodologies CGA is one then you have gravity model then you have very simple uh trade possibility approach. So what we did if we look at simply the uh gravity equation uh then uh one thing is very clear that the potential the trade potential between India and Marasur stands almost uh 30 30 to 35% more more than the actual which is uh now taking place. uh of course uh if you look at the gap the potential is more for India to export visav imports from Marasur. So the export additional export potential from India stands roughly around $5 billion. Uh the import potential from Marasur to India stands roughly around $3.3 billion. So clearly uh there is there is a potential which we can if we work together we can realize uh but the question is why we have not been able to realize my fellow panelists have already mentioned and I'm repeating uh the kind of uh PTA we have its coverage is very low uh and most of the trade between India and Marcasur countries are actually on MFN rates and as my fellow panelists have already shown the figure that MFN rate in Brazil in in Marasur countries as well as in India continues to be in double digit.
So we have we have significant uh trade uh tariff barrier which uh constraint our bilateral uh trade. Uh then uh this whole issue of non-tariff measures if you simply look at the NTM's coverage and frequency ratio. So in case of India though it's slightly low roughly 45% of tariff line in India are subject to the one or another non-tariff measures. uh the corresponding figure for Brazil, Argentina is way very way high. uh so so we have a very high non-tariff barriers which uh is another factor which kind of constraint our bilateral trade. Then uh I think Bannon talked about a lot talked a lot about the connectivity the kind of maritime connectivity uh we have is it actually adds a lot of logistic cost. So there is there is a a clear need to work on the connectivity to improve the uh to kind of address the logistic cost. So these are some of the challenge or barriers. Now what I have done is I have tried to identify like look if we are talking about the expansion of PTA. So if we want to expand the PTA sooner or later, we will have to kind of identify products where the import and export potential lies and then we will also have to deal with the kind of sensitivity around uh these these product. My previous panelist have already mentioned that both India and and Marasur countries have their own sensitivities. Uh there are certain sectors which India wants to protect.
there are certain sector which marasur wants to protect. So what we did we try to identify the tariff lines which have highest export and import potential. Of course uh the analysis has done from India's point of view. So this uh table actually shows uh the sectors and tariff line and sector and within those sectors the number of tariff tariff line for which India has highest export potential uh to export to uh to toast countries. So uh I don't know if the last line is visible uh in last uh row is visible in this uh uh table or not.
uh but if we do this analysis uh uh basically we what we did is we compare India's global export and the global imports of marasur and then we look at how much uh is the bilateral trade on those tariff line and then we look at the comparative advantage of each of these countries looking at revealed comparative advant advant uh RCA and then we kind of identify the number of tariff line which kind of qualify as tariff line with the highest level of import and export potential. So in case of India's exports to Marasur, our exercise showed that uh there are 227 tariff lines and please remember this is a six-digit level because uh 8digit level data is not available. uh so if we go at 8 digit level so most probably these uh 227 tariff line will kind of break into uh let's say around,8 900 or,000 products. Uh so there are these 227 tariff line in which India has uh great potential to export to marasur and a line share of these commodities are concentrated in chemical and allied industry sector. Uh then we have electronic and machineries uh basic metals uh then we have uh uh plastic and rubber product certain lines of textile.
Now uh these are the tariff lines but then what next step was to see uh do these countries do has any sensitivity around this. Now uh there are two ways to look at the sensitivities. one we can look at the the FDAs which Marasur has recently signed and see what kind of tariff line has been put into the uh exclusion list.
Uh but unfortunately the problem is that those kind of exclusion lists are given at 8digit level uh and but we have the available data allows us to do the analysis at six-digit level. Uh so that was not possible though we tried. uh then the second approach is to look at the applied MFN rate of tariff on those uh tariff lines. So what we did we divided these tariff lines into three different groups. Uh so the tariff line which are facing MFN rate of more than 15% are highly sensitive for that particular country and they are marked as dark red.
uh then there is kind of a medium level of sensitivity and these are the tariff line where the average applied tariff rate tariff rate MF and tariff rate range is between five to 15% and then uh the other uh nonsensitive where the tariff rate has been below five. So if you look at this exercise there are there is only mineral products where the tariff where the sensitivity is actually not there. uh but there are other uh products in which the sensitivity is very high uh especially uh in case of motor vehicle as a fellow panelist have already talked about textile then we have certain food products uh then we have raw hide and leather products then we have miscellaneous manufactured articles ship and boats arm and ammunition precious metal and footweares so these are the sectors where India has a kind of comparative advantage and it can exports export to to Brazil sorry Marasur but Marasur has rel relative relatively higher level of ter tar protection but if you look at if you kind of go beyond these there are certain sectors where the sensitivities are not that high so there is there is clear scope to kind of expand uh uh uh the PTA coverage and go for more deeper kind of a trade agreement to boost India's export and similarly we did the exercise for imports from the Makasur country again there is only one sector where the which has the potential but the sensitivity is not there but the important part is that as far as Brazil's the sectors which have higher level of export potential from Marasur to India the top let's say four five six group there India doesn't have very high sensitivity the tariff rate is below 15%. Uh but at lower end it has uh so so there is there is there are certain products uh where we have uh significant uh uh scope to kind of expand our PTA and improve our bilateral trade. uh the important thing is though uh we have uh these sensitivities but if you look at the recently signed FDA which India and Marosur has signed uh let's say let's take the example of EU so India has kind of shown kind of indicated that India is now uh in is willing to kind of go beyond those sensitivities and even open the market in sectors uh which were earlier kind of closed closely protected. So things are basically changing. Uh so there are there are I think if if we meaningfully engage with each other uh we can actually overcome those sensitivities and this is uh mostly because uh we know that this point has already been emphasized by fellow panelist that the global trade dynamics are changing rapidly uh and they are kind of pushing not only India and Marasur but all other countries to explore or kind of uh go for different uh uh realignment or different uh uh uh trade agreements with different countries to kind of ensure uh that their interests are taken care of. Uh India's FDA strategy if you look at you will find that India is kind of now going for uh the FDA at in a big way.
Similarly, if you look at the number of FDAs which Marasur is kind of has signed recently, it has increased. Plus uh there is a great scope for India and Marcasur to kind of ensure supply chain resilience and diversification if they enter in uh in a more meaningful and deeper trade agreement. We know that India at bilateral level is engaged with certain Makasur countries to ensure uh critical mineral security. So if if we kind of expand and go for a deeper economic partnership it will be more beneficial and after all uh the the last point basically is south south cooperation. So Marasur in India has been championing this cause of global south in increasing the global south cooperation. So that's that's provides another reason why we should kind of uh thinking and looking for uh more meaningful uh uh trade agreement. So the way forward I think uh there is there is a given the prevailing uh geoeconomic environment as well as the unrealized trade potential between India and Marasur there is a need to expand the PTA coverage. Uh it's better if we add more lines and increase the margin of preference. Uh then uh we will have to also think start thinking about the non-tariff measures. So can we kind of think uh uh starting a dialogue mechanism uh to address these concern uh the custom operations uh I think be uh it was Beaven who highlighted uh that it's about time that we increase our cooperation in custom uh uh we can we can do a lot working together to improve the trade facilitation uh it should definitely focus on the digitalization of custom operations uh India has done remarkably remarkably well in this. Marcasur countries are also doing great. Uh so maybe uh we should kind of start working in this direction and think of interoperability between the single window national single windows of uh our custom uh departments. Uh then uh there is no doubt we need to improve connectivity given our distance. uh if we reduce uh our if we improve our connectivity it will definitely uh improve make the uh trade more competitive and it improve the bilateral flow. uh then uh maybe though we are talking about the PTA expansion and as of now uh the discussion is only about PTA expansion as as one of my panelist uh talked about that maybe we are looking expansion from 450 uh uh tariff lines to 2,000 or 3,000 or tariff lines but uh I feel that uh it's about time that we should we should start thinking for moving towards a broader economic partnership. Uh so we should we should uh it's about time that we should kind of not restrict uh our engagement to the trade only or goods trade only. It's about time we start discussing about services. It's about time we focus on the investment. It's about time we we uh explore uh more opportunity in terms of labor mobility. it's about time uh we start thinking uh uh about what uh we can do in terms of energy security. So I feel that there is a strong complimentarity for India and Marasu to work together and expand economic relation. So this is it from my side for the time being. I'll be happy to take any question. Thank you.
Thank you professor Rashid for your wonderful Rashid for your wonderful uh presentation on India meosur the perspective of India with regard to meosur and the results of the uh exercise so far. I want to underscore the result uh that you mentioned with regard the potential lines of in other words he's correcting himself the constraints with regard to Ilia Merosour towards a FDA in terms of tariffs in terms of non-tariff measures connectivity but Even though even so and even the sensitivity of the uh both of exports as well as imports. I do believe that is very important what you said at first about the um characteristic of the current FTA between India and Merosour that has a coverage that's very limited about products that only it's only an an agreement that um um discusses products nor services or investments and also the items that are part of a type of FTA that's more modern of in with more disciplines in in the in the FTA. interesting uh what you said about that the fact that um looking at the trends of the trade between Merosur and India Merosour in the products that are part of the agreement the FDA has been an an increase of export of meosur uh as opposed to the other way around.
And finally the last two points. Why is it important to um strengthen this partnership, this agreement, this association between India and Merosour in terms of of increasing the products to be exported and the diversification of value chains and and in the context of a growing south south cooperation in the planet and also very important your recommendations and I want to underscore uh the the recommendation of beyond establish lish expanding the FDA and established strategies for reducing non-tariff measures. I want to underscore what you said about moving towards an association that is more that is broader an a broader economic partnership that will include other aspects as a beyond those that are just commercial uh cooperation between two blocks an emerging block like meosur and a an economic power such as India. Thank you very much sir for your presentation.
Very enlightening.
Very well. We would like to thank uh Professor Fernando Massi and as well as the presenters. We would like to congratulate them for the quality of your presentation. A round of applause, a virtual round of applause. And with that we would like to conclude our event. We would like to invite uh you uh invite Mr. Fernando Massi and Mr. Satim Kumar Sarma to to provide some closing remarks and we will be closing our events. Very thankful for everyone that has attended. We have um in fact run out of time. So there is no more time for questions and answers. But of course we are looking forward to your questions via email. Uh we are all ready to respond all of your questions. Professor um Satin Kumar, you have the floor uh to for a your concluding statement and after you Fernando Massi, thank you all for your participation.
>> Uh thank you. Thank you Marcelo. It's a really fantastic uh and impressive presentation in the second session and overall if I could talk about the overall event uh few things have come emerged that there is need to strengthen India Merkel relationship there are lot of potentials are there um uh in terms of trade tariff and non-tariff measures are the major challenges one of the things is there another is that logistic cost because given the distance between India and Mangasur country that how we can reduce the logistic cost how we can diversify our export uh given the fact that from no doubt the in the presentation came out that India's exported bit diversified in terms of the composition of product but in terms of mercasur how we can uh what are the potential and how to diversify these things uh given the fact that India is also doing lot of free trade agreements given the fact that we have with India then uh with India European Union so uh if that is a trend so uh I think this is a good moment to work on this how to strengthen this and uh I also congrulate Fernando as well for his uh study by using with GDAP CG modeling GDAP uh it also show that there is a lot of potential if uh we assume that uh maximum trade uh tariff liberalization that's the shock he has given in the CG modeling overall it's a very fantastic and it also good opportunity to meet all of you uh thank you very much and uh this is not we can say that bye-bye it's the start is a starting point we will need to work together. We need uh on the behalf of RA, we are committed to strengthening India's relationship with the Merkasurf and also the bilateral relation with each country. Thanks. Uh once again, thank you the ambasses. Uh thank you everyone who are participated here. Thank you very much. Namaste.
Thank you professor uh Satin Kumar Sharma. Now Professor Masi you have the floor. I'd like to thank once again the RAIS of India for having been here with us in this webinar that I believe is very important not only uh because of the brilliant presentations provided of meosur and India presctors but because it's a very good opportunity for something that has been underscored so many times during the webinar which is the need to have greater number of studies, more research to look more deeply the options that we have of the cooperation options and as well as commercial and investment relations with India. I would like to leave this opportunity open so that we can continue deepening our discussions and exchanging with the experts America India and supporting the negotiations that might lead us not only to a free trade agreement but to greater deepening of the relations of India and Merosur in economic terms and also in cooperation terms. I also would like to thank the support of our ambassadors of Paraguay in India and also the support of the embassy of India in Asencion. Thank you very much to you all.
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