India and Peru have decided to restart negotiations on a free trade agreement and will work on gateway issues and priority areas, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal has said. 

Chile, too, has shown interested in carrying out talks for a possible FTA with India, and the government is looking into it, Barthwal told the media on the sidelines of CII’s India-LAC conclave on Friday.

“If the countries are interested in FTAs, we will also look into possibilities,” he said. The negotiations with Peru are likely to start after the G20 Summit in September.

Considering that imports from India constitute less than 2 per cent of Latin American Countries (LAC’s) total imports, there is significant scope for expansion of India-LAC bilateral trade, he said. While efforts are underway to double the bilateral trade to $100 billion, that will also call for a new approach to broadbase trade exchanges, such as integrating with diversified global value chains in a re-globalised world.

Barthwal said there was a need for closer India-LAC co-operation in the area of energy transition. “Fresh thinking is called for in areas like renewals, battery manufacturing, energy storage technology, chemical industry impact, etc., that are aligned with the Net Zero goal,” he said.

He also suggested a Joint Economic and Trade Co-operation (JETCO) model for cooperation between the two regions on important issues outside an FTA. 

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