India, Brazil Discuss Trade Expansion

New Delhi, Oct 7 (PTI) India and Brazil on Tuesday discussed expansion of a preferential trade pact, market access issues and areas of collaboration in pharma and banking sectors, an official statement said.

These issues were discussed during the India-Brazil Trade Monitoring Mechanism (TMM) meeting here.

The discussions also included the review of bilateral trade and investment relations and the expansion of the India-Mercosur preferential trade agreement.

Mercosur is a trading bloc in Latin America, comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

The India-Mercosur preferential trade agreement (PTA) came into effect on June 1, 2009. This PTA has limited coverage and contains only 450 tariff lines or products.

The other issues, such as market access, visa issues, sectoral collaborations in pharmaceuticals and healthcare, chemicals and petro-chemicals, MSME, banking, and finance, were also discussed in the meeting.

Brazil is the largest trading partner of India in the Latin American and Caribbean region. During 2024-25, the bilateral merchandise trade stood at USD 12.19 billion.

There is a target to increase it to USD 20 billion over the next five years.

The meeting was co-chaired by Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal and Tatiana Lacerda Prazeres, Secretary of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services.

The outcome of the meeting will be reviewed by the Vice President of Brazil and the Minister of Commerce and Industry of India during the visit of the former to India next week.