India, South Korea in trade talks; envoy highlights 'great scope' for collaboration
Seoul: Indian Ambassador to South Korea Amit Kumar has highlighted the rapidly expanding partnership between India and South Korea, outlining the depth of bilateral ties, the progress under the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), and emerging opportunities in new technologies and green energy.
In an interview with ANI during the visit of an all-party Indian parliamentary delegation to Seoul, Ambassador Kumar discussed how the relationship now spans political, economic, security, and technological domains and holds significant promise for future growth.
"India and the Republic of Korea do enjoy a very wide-ranging special and strategic partnership. If you look at our relationship today, it straddles political and security issues, defence, and a very robust economic and commercial partnership, growing science and technology, start-up exchanges, and more P2P exchanges as well. Currently, South Korea is preparing for the next presidential elections, and we will aim to resume high level exchanges once the new government is in place. We have a number of ministerial dialogues at the level of foreign, finance, and science and technology ministers. The objective would be to get these kick-started in earnest, and we would also hope for an early visit by the new President of the Republic of Korea to India," Ambassador Kumar said, detailing the comprehensive nature of the ties and the importance of high-level visits and dialogues.
Ambassador Kumar pointed to the strong economic relationship between the two countries, noting, "If you look at our economic and commercial exchanges, bilateral trade is about USD 25 billion, but there is certainly scope for growth there. We have around USD 10 billion of investments from Korea, with around two billion flowing into India in the last two years, and we are expanding into new areas of cooperation. We also undertake around 15 joint research projects with Korea, and we are taking several new initiatives to expand and strengthen our cooperation in those areas."
He emphasised that the partnership is not only limited to traditional sectors but is also evolving to encompass research and innovation, with an increasing focus on science and technology.
Touching upon the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, Ambassador Kumar said, "In 2010, we concluded a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). It has led to an increase in trade. As you correctly pointed out, there is a growing trade deficit with Korea. Part of it is perhaps due to the structure and level of our economies at the moment, but I'm fairly confident that as we expand manufacturing in India, we'll have more things to export to Korea. The other part deals with issues of non-tariff barriers and market access, and we are in discussion with the Korean government on how to address these issues and ensure a fairer and balanced trade with them."
He underlined that India and South Korea are engaged in discussions to tackle non-tariff barriers and create a more balanced trade relationship, acknowledging the challenges but expressing confidence in the prospects as Indian manufacturing expands.
Ambassador Kumar also outlined the new directions of India-South Korea cooperation, especially in advanced manufacturing and future-oriented technologies. "The South Koreans have very advanced capabilities when it comes to many areas of advanced manufacturing as well as new, emerging areas of technology, and I'm happy to share with you that Korean companies in these areas are looking very intently at India. The Hyundai Motor Group has committed 2.45 billion dollars in the Electric Vehicles segment in India and it envisages the manufacturing of these vehicles, setting up of secondary batteries, and the charging infrastructure. Similarly, there is great scope in Green Hydrogen. South Korea is among the top five nations when it comes to Green Hydrogen technologies, but there is certain constraint there because of geography - they don't have much of renewable energy, therefore they are looking at countries like India to source Green Hydrogen. Both countries have very ambitious roadmaps for this. This will be a good future area for collaboration. In terms of shipbuilding, we see growing interest from South Korean companies to look at potential opportunities to collaborate with Indian shipyards. We also have growing exchanges in the areas of electronics and semiconductors as well as medical devices."
The Ambassador detailed how Korean investment and expertise in electric vehicles, shipbuilding, semiconductors, and medical devices is expected to further expand ties, with green hydrogen emerging as a promising frontier for collaboration due to South Korea's advanced technology and India's renewable energy capacity.
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