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India’s trade with the European Union during the first two months of the current financial year (April-May 2005) has shown a record increase of over 43%. India’s exports to the EU during this period have gone up by over 31% while India’s imports from EU are up by nearly 57%. This was indicated at a meeting between Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Mr. Peter Mandelson, the EC Commissioner for Trade, here this evening. Shri Kamal Nath and Mr. Mandelson recognised the setting up of the High Level Trade Group as the most important aspect of the India-EU Joint Action Plan in terms of the economic content of the bilateral Strategic Partnership initiative. “It is hoped that this initiative would fructify in broadening and deepening of our trade and investment relations and would suggest ways and means to reduce barriers to bilateral trade”, they said.
Shri Kamal Nath pointed out that while EU was India’s largest trading partner, India’s ranking in EU’s external trade was abysmally low and hoped that India would be able to gain substantially from such an agreement, especially in services. He also flagged the market access problems faced by India’s agri and marine products in the EU and expressed the hope that the new initiatives under the Joint Action Plan could address the issue on priority.
The India-EU investment scenario was also discussed, with Shri Kamal Nath reiterating that India was getting less than 1% of EU’s total investments abroad. Both stressed the huge possibilities in this area, including the potential for reverse flow of investments from India to the EU.
Shri S.N. Menon, Commerce Secretary, Shri Ajay Dua, Secretary (IPP); Shri Dipak Chatterjee, Ambassador designate, Embassy of India, Brussels; and Shri A. Sengupta, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Commerce & Industry participated from the Indian side, while Mr. Mandelson was accompanied by members of his official delegation including Mr. Philippe Meyer, Ms. Lisa Mackie, Mr. Stefano Gatto, Mr. Per Haugaard and Mr. Peter Power
On the current negotiations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Shri Kamal Nath reiterated India’s position in respect of agriculture, non-agriculture market access, services, special & differential treatment etc. The success or otherwise of the Hong Kong Ministerial would depend on positive outcome on such issues of interest to developing countries, he said.
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SB/MRS
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