India widens Preferential Trade Agreement with Chile

As per the expanded PTA, Chile has offered concessions to India on 1,798 tariff lines with margin of preference ranging from 30-100%

The Union Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved the expansion of the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with Chile, a move that will help in doubling of exports to the Latin American nation in the future.

"India's export basket with Chile is diversified and keeping in view the wide variety of tariff lines offered by Chile, the expanded PTA would immensely benefit India. Under the proposed expanded PTA, 86% of India's exports to Chile will get covered with concessions, which is likely to result in doubling of our exports in the near future,” said a statement released by the government after the cabinet meeting.

As per the expanded PTA, Chile has offered concessions to India on 1,798 tariff lines with margin of preference (MoP) ranging from 30-100%. India has reciprocated on 1,031 tariff lines with MoP at 10-100%.

A PTA between India and Chile was signed in March 2006 and came into effect from August 2007. In 2006-07, Chile was ranked 51st export destination for India. With bilateral trade at $2.3 billion.

The dynamics changed after the PTA came into force from September 2007, pushing up the growth figure by 58.5% between 2006-07 and 2014-15. In 2014-15, the Indo-Chilean trade came in at $3.65 billion, with exports at $0.57 billion and imports at $3.08 billion.