India, Africa should try to forge preferential trade agreement: Prabhu

19 Mar 2019 Evaluate

In order to expand India-Africa bilateral trade, Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu has said India and Africa should try to forge free trade pact or preferential trade agreement. Prabhu said ‘Please think about a free trade agreement between Africa and India. We can think about a preferential trade agreement...and the fundamental principle would be how Africa will benefit first and India later’. The India-Africa trade stands at $62 billion. India mainly exports pharmaceuticals, engineering and electronic products to Africa and imports natural resources and diamonds.

He further said that India received record Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in the last fiscal, and the country's outbound investment flows are also increasing. Africa will be the preferred destination for Indian investments. In the last financial year (FY18), India's exports to Africa were valued at $24 billion, whereas India's imports from Africa were at $38 billion.

Besides, Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan said the balance of trade is in favour of Africa. He stated there is a huge potential to expand India-Africa bilateral trade flow, towards which India should look to geographically diversify its ties with African countries, as also diversify the bilateral trade basket.

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