By Dra.(PhD) Paola A. Baroni
External Affairs Minister of India, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, has travelled to Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina on an official visit. This shows an interest to strengthen the links with South America. India is a global player but with little weight in the region.
The visit to Argentina is important because the objective is to deepen bilateral cooperation and to increase trade and investments. Since the establishment of the Strategic Partnership in 2019, bilateral links have had a new impetus that the pandemic could not slow down. There were many online meetings in the context of the bilateral institutional mechanism, as well as many academic events and business forums, and the India-Argentina Business Council (IABC) was created. Also, and in the face of the pandemic, cooperation emerged strong: India provided some medicines – hydroxychloroquine and paracetamol- and vaccines to Argentina, and the South American country allowed the sale of ventilators to India. Two important encounters in 2022 gave shape to the visit of the Minister of India: the visit of the Minister of Foreign Relations of Argentina, Santiago Cafiero, to India in April and that President Alberto Fernandez and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met at the G7 in Germany last June.
Trade has been, historically, the main trend in the bilateral relations, and it has reached 5.6 billion dollars in 2021. India is the fourth trade partner of Argentina (in terms of total bilateral trade), after Brazil, China, and the USA. However, the key issue is the need to diversify exportations, heavily concentrated in commodities in the case of Argentina and more diversified in the case of India, and to accelerate negotiations regarding the access of new products to both markets (e.g. the case of yerba mate in 2021). One element to highlight is that the different tensions observed in the world –such as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine-, have favored a deeper rapprochement between both countries, expressed in the increase in bilateral trade. In this context, India approved the expansion of the importation of soybean pellets to 550.000 tons. In addition to this, both parties agreed to ask their Central Banks to study the possibility of the development of a payment mechanism in local currencies to provide companies with an instrument to facilitate trade.
In the political dimension, India has reiterated its support to find a peaceful solution to the question of the Malvinas Islands, restating the need for the resumption of the negotiations by Great Britain, following the UNGA Resolution. At the same time, the South Asian country supports the initiative of Argentina to join BRICS and, by this way, to improve and broaden the voice in defense of the interests of the developing world and the global south agenda. Besides, Argentina, as pro-tempore president of CELAC, has proposed the idea to renew the links between India and the Community by developing a specific forum, such as the one that China has. In addition, Argentina also restated its support to India’s initiative to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
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Regarding the energy field, the conversations focused on exportations and investments in oil, shale gas (Vaca Muerta), along with strategic mining, like lithium. On this matter, both governments signed a MOU on Cooperation in the field of Mineral Resources. It is important to remember that the Indian Consortium KABIL signed a framework agreement with state-own YPF and JEMSE (a state company from the province of Jujuy) but so far, nothing has been done.
Jaishankar also attended an event organized by the IABC, where they reviewed the binational trade agenda, and the Minister promised to address with the Argentinean government some obstacles in trade relations, such as import licenses and difficulties in the issue of business visas.
The pharmaceutical sector is important and renowned in both countries and they showed their expertise during the pandemic. This led to both Ministers to agree on to facilitate trade and investments in pharm products. EAM Jaishankar requested the possibility to include India in Annex I of Decree 150 (1990) among the countries authorized to export pharm or medical specialties. In this context, it was decided that India would be the host country of the first bilateral conference of pharma companies to be celebrated this year, in order to explore different areas and methods of cooperation. Considering Ayurveda as a system to generate commercial and health benefits, especially in the area of health prevention, India requested that this system be recognized as a primary health care system in Argentina.
Another important, and relatively new, topic in the agenda is cooperation in the defense field. This year, in March, there was a visit by an Argentinean delegation to India in the context of the MOU signed in 2019. India is one of the largest providers of defense equipment in the world, so the objective is to widen the scope of its association and to deepen the strategic results of the bilateral relation. Therefore, they agreed to promote exchange visits among the Armed Forces, to boost defense training, and to work on possible cooperation in joint production of defense equipment.
They have also agreed to explore further cooperation in the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially medicine, in the framework of the different agreements signed in 2010 and 2019. The facility that INVAP is building in Mumbai (to produce molybdenum 99 (Mo-99) for medical applications) is an example of this type of cooperation. Besides, both governments have urged their nuclear regulatory agencies to conclude a proposal of MOU regarding nuclear security. Along with this topic, they underlined the close collaboration in space issues through both national space agencies, which are analyzing further opportunities of cooperation (exchange of satellite data, joint experiments of data validation, use of ground stations, etc.). In addition, both sides agreed to promote industrial and commercial collaboration in this sector.
At the end, they pointed out the value of the increased cooperation in high technologies and IT; food security; agro-industry, and traditional/renewable energies and mining, all sectors where there are possibilities of complementarities and cooperation. All these topics illustrate a broad bilateral agenda, and the initiatives and actions witnessed in the last 3 years show a change, a clear intention to deepen the strategic alliance. What is ahead is to see if this new impetus is or not circumstantial, linked to external factors, and the bilateral relations are really moving from a benign neglect to a strategic commitment. Time will tell us.
The author is an International Relations specialist – Córdoba, Argentina.
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