Huge opportunities exist to boost Indo-Israel trade: Rita Teaotia

Businesses of both the sides can look at collaborations in sectors like solar, agriculture, irrigation and pharmaceuticals, says Commerce Secretary

Huge opportunities exist in sectors like agriculture and pharma for India and Israel to boost their bilateral trade, a top government official said on Thursday.

"Our (bilateral) trade is about $5 billion and that is really much less than either of us believe that it could really be in terms of potential and complementarities of both the economies," Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia said here.

She was speaking at India-Israel Business Forum meeting organised by Ficci.

She said that businesses of both the sides can look at collaborations in sectors like solar, agriculture, irrigation and pharmaceuticals.

Teaotia said India is growing at a healthy rate and the government is taking several steps to improve business climate, trade facilitation, logistics and taxation structures.

"Israel has huge strength in communications and the 'Digital India' effort offers huge opportunities. We are looking at collaborations across all lines of the value chain and that starts from physical infrastructure reaching down to the last rural habitation, allowing large data transfers," she said.

She added that services and defence sectors too have huge scope for collaborations.

Seeking investments, the secretary said India has extensively relaxed its FDI policy.

"Lot of opportunities are there. In agriculture, we have lot of challenges and Israel has found some answers. I hope this will be an area of active interest for the Israeli delegation," Teaotia said.

India received FDI worth $107 million from Israel during April 2000 to September 2016.

In taxation, GST is a major step which will provide an easier market for investors, she said.

"Trade agreements are always significant and we are committed to engage further," she said.

Speaking at the event, India's Ambassador to Israel Pavan Kapoor too informed the Israeli delegation about the opportunities which exist in the country.

He said that irrigation and water management are important areas where India can utilise Israeli expertise.

"Israel has technologies for all of our flagship programmes like Make in India," he said.