India has enormous scope for trade tie with Korea: FICCI

New Delhi: The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said that there was enormous scope for trade between India and Korea to expand as the 12th round of negotiations are set to begin this week at Seoul to conclude a comprehensive economic partnership agreement between the two countries.

The Chamber highlighted the concern that China and Asean member countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore had overtaken India in exports to Korea. This was despite India’s trade with Korea having jumped four times to $4.62 billion and its share in imports increasing from 0.8 per cent to 1.3 per cent during 2002-07.

The Chamber stated that the top exports from India constituted crude & petroleum products, gems & jewellery, iron & steel, organic chemicals, cotton textiles, oil-cake, iron ore.

In India’s export basket to Korea, petroleum and petro-products constituted almost 55 per cent, barring which, the export figures would drop to just over $2 billion. Excluding petro-product-based exports, also dragged down India’s share of Korea’s imports to mere 0.6 per cent last year, the Chamber’s said.