May 2018: Global Trade War: India-Latin America trade grew by 20% (2017-18)

Trade wars have never been good news for the global economy. The last time the world saw trade war was in the 1930s when countries had tried to boost their trade surplus. The result was a massive slowdown around the world, which eventually resulted in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Despite the global trade conflict, India’s global trade has recorded 16.32% in 2017-18. According to Commerce Department, country’s global trade rose to $767.9 billion this fiscal from $660.2 billion in the previous year. Its total trade with Latin American countries (LAC) including Bolivia, Peru, Chile, andBrazil grew 19.6% to $29.33 billion in 2017-18.While Bolivia emerged as a major trade partner for India in LAC region, thanks to the small base, the two-way trade with Brazil has spurted to $8.56 billion from $6.51 billion in 2016-17.

India’s Oil & Gas MNC ONGC plans LatAm expansion: ONGCVidesh and Latin American Geo Park are forming a Colombia-headquartered joint business development group to create a long-term partnership in Latin America to achieve their expansion objectives. H.E. Mr. Ravi Bangar, Ambassador of India in Colombia and Ecuador, said, “Jointly, the companies intend to leverage the platforms, experience, and strengths of each company and to create a long-term successful partnership in Latin America to achieve their expansion objectives.”

PARLE establishing a new manufacturing unit in Mexico: Indian origin FMCG company PARLE is eyeing big on the Asian and Latin American market and is already in talks with the Mexican Government to set-up a new manufacturing facility in Mexico by the end of this fiscal.

Bolivian Government is in talks with the Indian Government to establish a government-to-government pact with India for extracting lithium from their country. Bolivia is trying to put together a 15,000-tonne capacity plant and India’s demand will be incremental. Argentina has approached Indian government and companies to invest in lithium mines in the South American nation. The requirement of lithium in the Indian market is expected to be 350,000 tonnes per year, discussions with officials of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) indicate.

Aeromexico, Mexico’sglobal airline and Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, will enable their codeshare sales today, which will allow passengers to travel to and from both countries by connecting via London to Mexico City, Delhi or Mumbai, as of May 1 this year.

Could India do better?

Latin America is now the second-largest destination for Chinese investment, after Asia. China is the top trading partner for three of Latin America’s biggest economies: Brazil, Chile, and Peru.

China’s interest in Latin America is part of a long strategic game, an effort to assert its influence around the world, quench its need for raw materials and control the flow of global trade through Chinese-funded transportation hubs.

April 2018: Karavan Advisory Enterprises M.D. Mr. Anish Narang with the Ambassador of India to Colombia, H.E. Mr. Ravi Bangar in Bogota, at CII India-Latin America Business Forum.