India- Latin America Trade in 2013

 India’s trade with the top ten trade partners of Latin America in 2013 was roughly $40 billion. Venezuela tops the list, followed by Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. Trade with most countries declined or stagnated in 2013, except for the significant increase (67%) in the case of Colombia. It is interesting to see that Colombia and Chile have overtaken Argentina, which used to be India’s third largest partner and is the region’s third largest economy.

  India’s trade with top ten trade partners of Latin America in 2013 and 2012 

	2013 (in US$ billions)	2012 (in US$ billions)
Venezuela	14 ( estimate)	14.3
Brazil	9.48	10.62
Mexico	6.67	6.29
Colombia	4.18	2.49
Chile	2.8	3.21
Argentina	1.7	1.84
Peru	1.3	1.13
Ecuador	0.546	0.536
Costa Rica	0.133	0.122
Paraguay	0.131	0.110
Total	41.09	41.04

Top ten destinations for India’s exports in 2013 and 2012 in billions of dollars

	2013 (in US$ billions)	2012 (in US$ billions)
Brazil	6.35	5
Mexico	2.86	2.95
Colombia	1.19	1.12
Peru	0.723	0.742
Argentina	0.695	0.573
Chile	0.692	0.658
Ecuador	0.516	0.443
Venezuela	0.251	0.301
Uruguay	0.111	0.145
Paraguay	0.109	0.095
Total	13.49	12.01

Brazil remained the top destination of India’s exports, followed by Mexico and Colombia. It is notable that Ecuador has overtaken Venezuela while Colombia and Peru have overtaken Argentina as more important destinations for India’s exports. Diesel,chemicals, vehicles, pharmaceuticals and textiles were the major items of export to Latin America. Diesel continued to be the main export (mostly to Brazil) amounting to $3.3 billion in 2013. 

Top ten Latin American sources of India's imports

	2013 (in US$ billions)	2012 (in US$ billions)
Venezuela	14 ( estimate)	14.1
Brazil	3.13	5.57
Mexico	3.52	3.81
Colombia	2.99	1.36
Chile	2.18	2.63
Argentina	1.1	1.26
Peru	0.586	0.386
Costa Rica	0.032	0.032
Ecuador	0.030	0.093
Paraguay	0.022	0.015
Total	27.6	29.03

As in recent years, Crude oil was the largest import from the region, with imports of $14 billion from Venezuela, $3 billion from Mexico, $2.8 billion from Colombia and $1.58 billion from Brazil. Latin American crude exporters are keen to increase exports to India in view of their declining exports to the U.S. – which is reducing imports thanks to an increase in domestic production after the shale gas and tight oil revolutions. The other big import items are copper, mostly ( 1.91 billion dollars) from Chile, and edible oil (soya and sunflower oil) mostly from Argentina for over a billion dollars.