Business

India, Ukraine To Improve Bilateral Trade

The 4^th Meeting of India-Ukraine Working Group on Trade and Economic Cooperation (IU-WGTEC), under the India-Ukraine Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical, Industrial and Cultural Cooperation was held in New Delhi on April 2, 2019. [caption id="attachment_16097" align="alignleft" width="350"] Bidyut Behari Swain and Oleksiy Rozhkov exchanging documents during IU-WGTEC meeting in New Delhi[/caption] Indian delegation was led by Bidyut Behari Swain, Additional Secretary, Foreign Trade (CIS), Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. Ukrainian Side was led by Oleksiy Rozhkov, Director of Directorate for International Trade and Economic Cooperation and European Integration of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine. A protocol was signed at the end of the meeting. The protocol deals with review of trade, cooperation in the field of small and medium entrepreneurship, cooperation in the field of technical regulation (standardisation, metrology, certification, conformity assessment), public-private partnership (PPP) and investment, among others. India exported goods and services worth US$ 330.10 million to Ukraine in 2017-18 (US$ 305.73 million during 2018-19, April-Feb), and India’s imports from Ukraine are valued at US$ 2355.97 million (US$ 1921.70 million). Cooperation in enhancing bilateral trade India and Ukraine have identified potential sectors to increase bilateral trade, which is currently quite low. Both sides agreed to share the list of products which they would like to trade. India and Ukraine businesses will also be encouraged to participate in major trade fairs in the identified sectors. The two countries have also agreed to share information on mandatory inspections and regulations, to reduce trade delays. The two sides will also establish cooperation between their chambers of commerce, export promotion councils and trade associations. Cooperation in the field of Small and Medium Entrepreneurship India’s National Small Industries Corporation’s (NSIC) will cooperate with its Ukranian counterpart in the following fields:

- Implementation of Technology Incubation Centre in Ukraine for the development of micro and small enterprises
- Facilitation in creating enterprise to enterprise cooperation
- Exchange of business delegations
- Consultancy in development of SMEs in Ukraine

The next IU-JWGTEC is scheduled in early 2020 in Kyiv.