External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna has emphasised India and Brazil could learn from each other’s experiences and noted the latter’s steady growth and the commonality between growth models of the two countries.
During his ongoing visit to Brazil, the Minster interacted with representatives of Indian and Brazilian business communities in Sao Paulo on Sunday, an official release said here.
At this meeting complementarities between Brazil and India was outlined in the fields of agriculture - sugar and ethanol; automobiles and auto parts; electrical; iron and steel; cellulose; wood pulp; food processing and banking.
Procedural bottlenecks hampering trade and investments were also mentioned by the participants, including credit availability and civil aviation links.
Among the prominent members of the Brazilian business community present were the President of the India-Brazil Chamber of Commerce, Roberto Paranhos do Rio Branco, as well as representatives of IT firm Stefanini and Banking automation firm ATP. Among the prominent Indian companies present were TCS, Reliance and Ranbaxy, besides representatives of trading, textile and hospitality sectors.
The discussions included a broad overview of opportunities for Indian companies in Brazil including in the field of pharmaceuticals (Indian exports are currently $ 600 million), IT, engineering (L&T has received a major order from Petrobras), petroleum (OVL’s stake in exploratory blocks) and agri-products. Investments by Brazilian companies in India include electrical sector (Weg), steel sector (Gerdau), bus building (Marcopolo) and IT (Stefanini).
