The Union Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles Shri Anand Sharma today met Mr. Arvin Bollel, Mauritian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade here. During the meeting it was informed that the first meeting of the Joint Committee on Cooperation about the textile and clothing industry to India will be held from July 23, 2012 here.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed earlier this year between the two countries which envisaged the consolidation of the textile and clothing industry, enhancing the trade and economic relations by expanding business and cooperation in the sphere of textiles, clothing and fashion industries, exchange of information and documents, transfer of technology and sharing and adopting best practices in production, productivity and quality improvement, fashion and design, product development and executive development programmes between the two countries.
The two Ministers also agreed to hasten the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) negotiations. They also agreed to deepen economic engagement between the two countries. Shri Sharma said that the bilateral economic and commercial ties have shown a healthy upward trajectory, but there is still a lot of untapped potential in diversifying our commercial exchanges. India has been the largest source of imports for Mauritius since 2007. However, in sectors like agro-processing, manufacturing, drugs and pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, seafood, automobile parts, tourism and hospitality, IT and IT enabled services, Ayurveda, etc there is scope to further deepen the ties, said the Indian Minister.
The bilateral trade between India and Mauritius in 2011 was US$ 1.395 billion as compared to US$ 0.687 billion in 2010. While the exports in 2010 were US$ 0.671 billion which increased to US$ 1.361 billion in 2011, the imports of US$ 0.015 billion in 2010 has increased to US$ 0.034 billion in 2011. During January-May 2012, exports have been US$ 0.517 billion, while imports have been US$ 0.012 billion.
Besides petroleum products, main items of India`s exports to Mauritius in 2010-11 were cotton, pharmaceuticals, cereals, carpets, electrical machinery and equipment parts, apparel and clothing accessories. India is a major supplier of cotton to Mauritius` textile industry. A significant portion of Mauritius` basmati and non-basmati rice requirements are also sourced from India. The main items of Mauritius` exports to India in 2010-11 were Iron and Steel, optical, photographic and precision instruments and aluminium and articles thereof.
Mauritius is the single largest source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into India. The FDI inflows from Mauritius have been US$ 64.80 billion, which constitutes 37.64 pc of the total FDI inflows from the country. Indian investment in Mauritius amounts to about US$ 14.332 billion.
