Picture : Twitter / ANI
Hit by economic slowdown, India and Brazil have drew up an ambitious plan to boost their stuttering economies by expanding cooperation in oil, gas and minerals sectors, and set a target of $15 billion in bilateral trade by 2022.
The decisions were taken during wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Jair Messias Bolsonaro , PTI reported .
On Brazil approaching the WTO against India for extending support to sugarcane growers, sources said it was agreed to address the issue through bilateral consultations.
Prime Minister Modi also tweeted that India and Brazil will working together for a better planet
Apart from robust bilateral cooperation, India and Brazil are also working together at various multilateral forums. We see immense synergies on various issues including the need to uproot the menace of terrorism.
India and Brazil will keep working together for a better planet. pic.twitter.com/YukXFug6zN
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 25, 2020
The two leaders recognised that there were great synergies between India and Brazil, the two large economies with a combines GDP of around $4.5 trillion and having a total population of 1.5 billion.
The volume of bilateral trade in 2018-10 was $ 8.2 billion which included $3.8 billion worth of Indian exports to Brazil and $4.4 million as imports by India.
The two sides inked an investment cooperation and facilitation treaty providing for a framework to increase trade and investment in high growth areas. A separate pact was inked for cooperation in the field of oil and natural gas while another one was sealed in the bioenergy sector.
The areas identified for expansion of cooperation included oil and gas, agriculture, bio-fuels, animal husbandry, health and science and technology.
“The two sides also agreed to set a target of $15 billion in bilateral trade by 2022 given the complementarities between the two economies,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.
He said the two leaders recognized agriculture to be a key focus area for bilateral cooperation and important part of both economies.
In the field of bio-fuels, an MoU on cooperation in bioenergy was signed between two countries.
“Both Modi and Bolsonaro agreed that the two countries could collaborate in the field of ethanol production. Given that Brazil is a leader in this field, they would share state of art technology with India in this sector. Prime Minister Modi stated that this would serve India’s developmental goals,” Kumar said.
The two sides also agreed to cooperate in the field of animal husbandry.
