A delegation led by Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal held the 11th India - New Zealand Joint Trade Committee (JTC) meeting in New Zealand, the Commerce & Industry Ministry said on Thursday.
In a joint press statement after holding bilateral and delegation level talks here with his Greek counterpart, Modi said that both countries have agreed to double their bilateral trade by 2030.
Addressing the media, Goyal said both India and Australia were not satisfied with the $30 billion trade between the two nations.
The Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement with Australia sets an excellent example of how bilateral trade deals in limbo can be concluded by working out a common minimum agenda of cooperation focused on shared geo-strategic and geo-economic interests.
Indo-Afghan trade has been heavily tilted in India’s favour till now. The Taliban takeover throws up significant challenges for India’s exports with trade routes shutting down and the government and the Taliban yet to arrive at a trade agreement
The Foreign Secretary further said that the Kashmir issue was neither raised nor discussed during the meet.
The meeting comes as a follow-up to the meeting in Osaka, Japan, last month.
India's exports to China stood at only $13.4 billion, imports aggregated to $76.4 billion in 2017-18, leaving a trade deficit of $63 billion. It was $51.11 billion in 2016-17.
The row kicked off on September 27 when the Indian government announced a $1 billion sugar subsidy scheme in addition to a previous round of domestic industry assistance.
New Southbound Policy (NSP) that looks to deepen the East Asian nation's relationships with South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Taiwan boosted its external trade with these NSP countries by 15.61 per cent to $110.9 billion last year.
