A three-day photo exhibition titled ‘Amazing Amazon,' will be inaugurated by Juan Alfredo Pinto Saavedra, Ambassador of Colombia to India, at Amethyst on Friday.
Mr. Pinto said the exhibition was part of the promotion of trade and cultural relationships between India and Colombia. The exhibition would present the hidden treasures of tribes, flora and fauna along the banks of the Amazon from the Pacific Ocean to the Andes Mountains.
Talking about the bilateral ties between the two countries, Mr. Pinto said that the Latin American Countries (LAC) were rich in natural resources.
ADVERTISEMENT
Market potential
The LAC and the Caribbean region comprising 43 countries accounted for about 3.67 per cent of the total world trade in 2009.
Considering the market potential in the Latin American region, an integrated programme ‘Focus LAC' was launched in November 1997 by the Commerce Ministry. The programme was revived from time to time and extended up to March 2014. So far India had signed two Preferential Trade Agreements in LAC region, he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
India's total trade with the region increased from 1,732.55 million US dollars in 2000-01 to 16,602 million US dollars in 2009-10, registering an increase of about 858 per cent in a decade. India's export to Latin America was 6.21 billion US dollars in 2009-10 and the imports from the region were 10.39 billion US dollars, he said.
Focus sector in Chennai
As far as Chennai was concerned, Colombia was looking at automobile industries, health care and information technology. For this the Colombian business delegates were interacting with companies such as TVS, Apollo, Polaris and Hexaware, he said.
The country had already signed 14 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with various chambers of commerce, seven MoUs with different Indian Universities and an equal number with the Indian Government.