Chile, on offered a platform for India to approach the huge Latin American markets and proposed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with New Delhi to bolster bilateral trade and investment.

“Chile can be a platform for India in Latin America as we have all the necessary required infrastructure — roads, ports, buildings, telecommunication — for operating business into the entire Latin America,” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said after hosting a ceremonial welcome to President Pratibha Patil at Patio Las Camelias located inside the palace of La Moneda.

India is the leader among all the developing nations and it would be fruitful for Chile to have more and more business coming from here, she said.

The Chilean President also favoured going a step ahead of the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) and engage in a Free Trade Agreement with India as she favoured diversification of bilateral trade and investment basket to give a greater fillip to the trade between the two countries.

The bilateral trade of USD 2.4 billion between India and Chile got a boost with the signing of the PTA in 2006 between both them.

Under PTA, India gives tariff preferences on nearly 200 Chilean items, while Chile has cut duties on nearly 300 items. The Chile was “open” for an FTA with India, she said.

Under the PTA, nearly 600 items invoke duties but under FTA all good could be traded. Chile is the first country in Latin America with which India has an operative Preferential Trade Agreement.

Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Nalin Surie said, “Free Trade Agreement is one of the several options we have. We already have the PTA working wonderful with them. We will have to take it forward… it could be an extension of the existing PTA.”

Ahead of the visit of President Pratibha Patil, Chile had liberalised its visa regime under which the businessmen from India could be granted a visa for a period of six-month with multiple entries.

Setting aside the earlier trend of insisting on an invitation from Chile, the government has asked to issue visas to all those businessmen who wanted to enter into trade with Chile.

The two countries also inked four agreements on Air Services, Memorandums of Understanding on Antarctic Cooperation, Sports Cooperation and Science and Technology.

Barring the MoU on Sports, the other three agreements were signed by Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy Vilas Muttemwar and Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley.

The pact on sports was inked by Indian Ambassador to Chile Sushmita Gonguly Thomas.