TLI Staff
New Delhi: Action plan and deliverables set by India for BRICS would help boost intra-trade and investment with partner nations, engineering goods body Engineering Export Promotion Council of India (EEPC) has said.
In the first meeting of BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI) under India’s Chairship, it has been agreed that member nations will collectively work on multilateral trading system including cooperation for the TRIPS waiver proposal at WTO and framework for consumer protection in e-commerce among others.
The EEPC India said that India’s action plan for 2021 would support a transparent and non-discriminatory, rules-based multilateral trading system in line with WTO vision.
Given that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) are expected to drive global recovery in the post pandemic world, roll-out of the action plan would accelerate trade and investment between India and other member states of the group, it said in a statement.
Share of India’s Intra-BRICS trade to global trade has been around 14-15% and there is huge potential of growth. Measures to further facilitate trade and investment would certainly help the engineering goods industry.
“We see a lot of opportunity in widening the scope of economic engagement as the grouping of the five major emerging economies accounts for about 23% of the world GDP. The five countries together comprise 42% of the world population and have 16% share in global trade,” said EEPC India Chairman Mr. Mahesh Desai.
As bilateral trade with China accounts for the bulk of India’s trade with BRICS, the trade potential with other countries is sizable. In 2018-19, India’s total trade with BRICS was US$114.1 billion but out of this China’s share was US$ 87.1 billion.
India has proposed several deliverables based on the “Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2025” adopted during Russian Presidency in 2020.
Among the key areas of work would include co-operation framework for protection of genetic resources and traditional knowledge.
“The BRICS partners appreciated the activities planned by India, being timely and relevant in the current context and expressed their support for working together on the various initiatives proposed by India. From now on till September, 2021, inter sessional deliberations will be carried out to reach a consensus amongst the BRICS countries,” said a Commerce & Industry Ministry press note.