India eyes expansion of Mercosur trade pact to increase market access and investments: Piyush Goyal – The Times of India

India is pushing to expand its preferential trade deal with the Mercosur bloc as part of efforts to scale up trade and investment ties with Latin America, Trade and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday, signaling a broader reset in economic engagement with the region, PTI reported. Goyal, while addressing Ficci’s India-Brazil Business Forum, said New Delhi is working to deepen market access and partnerships beyond the current limited framework of the India-Mercosur agreement.“The Mercosur region is particularly important to us, and we are working to expand our preferential trade agreement between India and Mercosur, improve market access, grow investment on both sides, have technology partnerships and engage in sports, education and culture,” he said.The existing PTA between India and Mercosur – signed with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay – came into force on June 1, 2009 and currently covers only about 450 tariff lines. Both sides are exploring ways to expand it into a more comprehensive arrangement.Goyal said trade momentum between India and Brazil has improved but remains below potential despite recent gains.“We need to be significantly more ambitious,” he said, noting that bilateral trade has increased by 25 percent to over $15 billion by 2025. Brazil is India’s largest trading partner in the Latin America and Caribbean region.Highlighting the growing cooperation, the minister said the engagement between the two countries now includes the defense, energy, agriculture, agrochemicals, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, critical minerals and aviation sectors. He also invited Brazilian companies to increase their investments in India.Goyal added that India is on track to overtake Germany within the next two years to become the world’s third-largest economy, driven by reforms in tax, logistics, manufacturing and digital infrastructure, besides measures to reduce compliance burden and ease of doing business.“When we think of Brazil, we think of its rich natural resources. Minerals such as niobium, lithium and iron ore are crucial for shaping the future of technology and the global energy transition,” he said.“All this is coming together to make Brazil our strategic partner in global supply chains. Together we have the potential to reshape global supply or value chains with resource innovation and a forward-looking vision,” the minister added.India and Brazil also agreed to target annual bilateral trade of $20 billion within five years and signed a cooperation pact on critical minerals following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.Lula said during the forum that trade expansion potential between the two economies remains significant.“That’s a lot of growth, but it’s still not much if we take into account the size of Brazil and India,” he said, adding that both countries are seeking stronger involvement outside traditional markets such as Europe, the US, Japan and China.He said bilateral trade could eventually reach $30 billion.“We decided to change this because the potential, you know, of political, economic, cultural, scientific and technological integration between Brazil and India is something that is enormous in its dimension,” Silva said.The Brazilian president said extending the validity of visas for business trainees from five to 10 years would support cooperation between companies and highlight opportunities in bioenergy, noting Brazil’s expertise in ethanol and fuel technologies.“Brazil has at least 26 percent of the world’s reserves of crucial minerals. We want to attract the processing chain for this wealth. The agreement we signed with India today goes in this direction,” he said.Silva added that Brazil aims to expand both exports to and imports from India while strengthening technology transfer and industrial cooperation.“We want to invest and consolidate our presence in India with technology transfer and workforce capacity building. With the agreement signed by Embraer with Adani and Mahindra groups, these agreements will enable production of commercial and defense aircraft here in India,” he said.Both sides identified clean energy, electric mobility, healthcare, space, semiconductors and digital innovation as sectors offering great potential for deeper cooperation