Gupta wants export strategy

India and Syria should endeavour to take bilateral trade from US$175 million in 2017 to US$500 million in 2020, said the leaders of Indian exporters, calling for a strategy review.

Indian Exports should touch US$350 million, while imports should increase to US$150 million by 2020, said Ganesh Kumar Gupta, President of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations (FIEO).

He called on India to review its exports strategy depending on imports profile of Syria.

Elaborating further, he said that the import of automobiles in Syria is about US$293 million with India’s exports of less than US$ 1 million.

“Similarly, in electrical machinery imports of US$303 million, our exports are US$4.18 million,” he pointed out.

In mechanical machinery and appliances, India ships US$9 million out of total imports of US$250 million by the Syrians.

In plastics and articles category, Indian exports are just US$3.2 million out of the US$268 million imported by the Syrians.

“In iron & steel, we have less than 1% share out of an import size of US$145 million,” said Gupta after leading 84-member delegation to the to Syria.

The delegation had detailed discussion on payment mechanism and banking arrangements, the two main stumbling blocks in trade and investment, according to FIEO release on 11 Sept 2018.

Trading in local currencies, offsetting of trade balance with investment were some of the options discussed with the Syrian authorities.

The delegation met the Finance Minister, Economy & Foreign Trade Minister, Industry Minister, Transport Minister, Petroleum & Mineral Resources Minister, Minister of Agriculture, Public Work & Housing Minister, Minister of Electricity, Minister of Public Work and Housing besides Syrian Investment Authority for wide ranging discussion on potential areas of cooperation in various field. fiinews.com