India and Ukraine recently discussed ways to enhance bilateral trade and investments to boost economic cooperation at the fourth meeting of India- Ukraine Working Group on Trade and Economic Cooperation in New Delhi. Both sides agreed that trade was far below the potential and decided to increase cooperation in leather, tobacco, tea and gems and jewellery.
The Indian delegation was led by Bidyut Behari Swain, Additional Secretary, Foreign Trade (CIS), Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, while the Ukrainian side was led by Oleksiy Rozhkov, Director of the directorate for international trade and economic cooperation and European integration of the Ministry of economic development and trade, according to a statement from the Indian Ministry.
During April-February 2018-19, India’s exports to Ukraine stood at $305.73 mn, while imports were at $1.92 bn. Both sides should share the mandatory requirement of inspections and regulations to be fulfilled at the time of exporting or importing any product so that any delay related to such inspection could be reduced, the statement said.
India expressed interest in exporting agricultural items such as apples, bananas, cake of soyabeans, cotton, coffee, cucumber and gherkins, flour of wheat, grapes, groundnuts and maize. India also asked Ukraine to identify a nodal agency that can cooperate with its National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) in the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector in the implementation of a technology incubation centre in Ukraine, facilitating enterprise-to-enterprise cooperation, exchange of business delegations and consultancy in development of SMEs there.
