India signs one more PTA; this time with Chile

New Delhi, Mar 8: Sending an important signal of increasing its economic engagement in south America, India today signed a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with Chile with which bilateral trade is 447.54 million dollar.

The Agreement was signed by Commerce Secretary S N Menon Ambassador of Chile in India Jorge Heine in the presence of Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath and , Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh.

Mr Kamal Nath said the PTA would take bilateral trade to a higher plane as the next few years would witness a substantial growth in two-way trade.

The PTA provides tariff preferences ranging from 10 to 50 per cent on 178 tariff lines at the 8-digit level to Chile and a similar range of preferences on 296 tariff lines at the 8-digit level to India. It will benefit 98 per cent of the items being exported by Chile to India and 91 per cent of the goods being exported by India to Chile currently.

The Indian products which would benefit include textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, engineering and agricultural machinery.

The Chilean products benefiting from the PTA are copper, cellulose, newsprint, iodine, fish meal, wood boards, planks and salmon.

The Preferential Trade Agreement strategically positions Chile to access and to capitalise on the Indian market and its technological assets.

For both India and Chile, the availability of clean energy technologies, information technology enabled services, applications of peaceful uses of outer space, access to low cost medicines, and harvesting ocean resources are important.

Mr Jairam Ramesh raised the issue of restrictions on the Indian pharmaceutical companies in Chile while the Chilean Ambassador wanted India to reduce the customs on the Chilean wines.

UNI