Tariff lines increased to 2,829 to boost bilateral trade.
Exporters from India and Chile will enjoy advantage of low tariff concessions under the expanded Preferential Trading Agreement(PTA) which covers around 96% of the bilateral trade.
The expanded PTA, signed on 6 September 2016, comes into effect from 16 May 2017.
The expanded PTA has a wider coverage wherein Chile has offered concessions to India on 1,798 tariff lines with Margin of Preference (MoP) ranging from 30%-100%.
India has offered concessions to Chile on 1,031 tariff lines at 8-digit level with MoP ranging from 10%-100%.
India and Chile had earlier signed a PTA on March 8, 2006 which came into force with effect from August, 2007.
India’s offer list to Chile consisted of only 178 tariff lines whereas Chile’s offer list to India contained 296 tariff lines.
Chile is the fourth largest trading partner of India in Latin American Countries after Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina.
India’s bilateral trade has grown substantially to reach a level of US$3,646.45 million during 2014-15 as compared to US$2,655.35 million in 2011-12 as per the Department of Commerce statistics.
However, during year 2015-16, bilateral trade declined by (-) 27.60% and stood at US$2,639.99 million with exports US$679.32 million and imports US$1,960.67 million.
The decline in bilateral trade was due to extraneous reasons such as fall in prices of crude oil and international commodities.
During the last few years, bilateral trade has been in favour of Chile because of import of high volume of copper ore which constitute more than 88% of the imports from Chile.
India’s exports to Chile are diverse which consist of transport equipment, drugs and pharmaceuticals, yarn of polyester fibres, tyres and tubes, manufacture of metals, articles of apparel, organic/inorganic and agro chemicals, textiles, readymade garments, plastic goods, leather products, engineering goods, imitation jewellery, sports goods and handicrafts.
Major items of Import from Chile are copper ore and concentrates, iodine, copper anodes, copper cathodes, molybdenum ores & concentrates, lithium carbonates & oxide, metal scrap, inorganic chemicals, pulp & waste paper, fruits & nuts excluding cashews, fertilizers and machinery.
Keeping in view that Chile is the founding member of the Pacific Alliance to which India is an Observer Member, implementing the expanded PTA could deepen its engagement with the emerging trade bloc. fii-news.com
