The Union Minister for Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu, is leading the delegation for the meeting for trade Ministers of RCEP member countries which is taking place in Singapore on November 12-13, 2018.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a pact that aims to cover goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights. Trade Ministers of the 16 member RCEP are meeting in Singapore to continue to exert all efforts towards meeting the targets set. The chief negotiators had recently concluded the 24th round of meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, last month.

India already has a free trade agreement with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan and South Korea and it is negotiating similar pacts with Australia and New Zealand.

India is pushing for liberalizing norms to promote services trade as the sector accounts for about 55 % of India’s GDP. India is looking for a balance trade agreement as it would cover 40% of the global GDP and over 42% of world’s population.

The RCEP members include 10 ASEAN members – Brunei Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam and their 6 free trade agreement partners – India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

The ministerial meeting will be followed by the 2^nd RCEP Leaders Summit on 14^th November, 2018, in Singapore.

Commerce Secretary,Dr. Anup Wadhawan, had a bilateral meeting with Mr. Wang Shouwen, Vice Minister of China’s Commerce Minister, today in Shanghai. The Commerce Secretary was accompanied by senior officials from Department of Commerce, Department of Food and Public Distributionand officials from Embassy of India in Beijing and Consulate in Shanghai. The Indian delegation on this visit included Chairman APEDA, MD NAFED, DG FIEO, DG Pharmexcil.

The Commerce Secretary while expressing concern regarding the large trade deficit, acknowledged Chinese Government’s efforts in clearing some of the market access issues such as for rice and rapeseed meal during the past few months and expressed satisfaction over progress on soya bean meal and pomegranate and related issues. He also informed Mr. Wang about the encouraging response to the business promotion events organized by the Indian Embassy and Consulates covering products like sugar, rice, tea and oil meals.Dr. Wadhawan requested Mr. Wang to provide MOFCOM’s guidance to its importers to source these products from India.

The Commerce Secretaryinformed that areas like agriculture products, pharmaceuticals, information technology services and tourism in which India has proven strengths and significant global presence but minuscule presence in China, need to be encouraged in bilateral trade. Dr. Wadhawan asked for guidance, facilitation, support and assistance to the relevant stakeholders for creating a suitable environment for India’s exports in these sectors to China.

MOFCOM thanked India for accepting its invitation to participate in the 1^st CIIE and assured all support for increasing India’s exports to China.

Recently India and China had a series of official level exchanges to discuss the bilateral trade issues. After the successful Joint Economic Group meeting hosted by India’s Commerce Minister in March 2018 and attended by China’s Commerce Minister, both countries had two rounds of dialogues at the official level leading to resolution of some of the pending market access issues.

During this visit, the Commerce Secretary also had a detailed discussion with important sugar importers of China including China Sugar Association and briefed them about India’s sugar sector and its proven available capacity in terms of both, quality as well as quantity, to meet the Chinese requirements on a sustained long term basis.Important players from Indian sugar industry including MD, NFCSF also attended related meetings during the visit. These meetings would be helpful in tapping this major import market for Indian sugar.

On 4^th November the Commerce secretary attended the banquet hosted by China’s president Xi Jinping on the eve of opening of the CIIE and on 5^th November he attended the inaugural ceremony of the expo.

European supermarket chains and top manufacturers of processed food will be sourcing their Food and Beverage(F&B) requirements from India at the Indusfood-II – the export focused annual F&B trade fair organized by Trade Promotion Council of India (TPCI) jointly with Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Discussions were held with TPCI and Ms. Maria Carillo, International Director of FIAB (Spanish Federation of Food and Drink Technology) for bilateral cooperation and promotion of Indian and Spanish dairy sector. Ms. Maria Carilloevinced keen interest in sending a delegation to India during Indusfood-II to source their raw food requirements from India.Milk plays an important role in the northern regions of Spain as it is the main agricultural produce with the dairy industry contributing to 9% of gross added value of Spanish food and drink sector.

Indusfood is a tradeshow, the second edition of which will be held in Greater Noida (NCR Delhi) on January 14-15, 2019, to showcase India’s best line-up of food, beverages and agri products to global buyers, many of whom have already committed participation in Indusfood-II and are gearing up for B2B meetings and business tie-ups with Indian food suppliers. It will alsogenerateinterest in the large basket of brands, private labels and bulk purchase opportunity of raw items that India could offer to the world.

Indusfood-2019 will see the participation of many foreign government delegations and representatives of large foreign companies involved in strategic purchase of food commodities through investments or long-term purchase agreements to achieve the food security of their country or to supply their large food processing industries.

The Indusfood-I, held in early 2018, was a big success that saw international buyers from 43 countries and 320 Indian exporters, from 12 categories of Food and Beverage industry, generating an estimated business of $650 million. The Indusfood-II is expected to see the participation of more than 600 global buyers from around 50 countries.

TPCI is committed to promote value added packed Indian consumer products in the F&B segment by establishing direct contacts with the major retailer chains of the world. This leads to popularization of Indian taste and culinary traditions with Indian ready-to-eat products. Over 75 global retailers with high regional penetration and market size such as Panda of Saudi Arabia, Magnet of Russia, BIM of Turkey or Rewe of Germany and many more will be present during the show with their purchase teams which will givedirect access on the international platform to Indian brands. TPCI’s efforts are to put India on the global F&B map and establish it as a global market in the food trade giving India the much needed recognition as a major player in the global food value chain.