India and Ukraine on Tuesday discussed ways to enhance bilateral trade and investments with a view to increase economic cooperation.

The issue was discussed during the fourth meeting of India-Ukraine Working Group on Trade and Economic Cooperation.

“Both sides agreed that trade was far below the potential and there was a need to step up their cooperation to enlarge the trade basket and increase the bilateral trade and investment. There is trade deficit on the part of Indian side and both sides agreed to find out the modalities to reduce it further,” the commerce ministry said in a statement.

During April-February 2018-19, India’s exports stood at $305.73 million, while imports were at $1.92 billion.

In order to promote trade, both sides should share the mandatory inspections’/ regulations’ requirement to be fulfilled at the time of exporting / importing of any product so that any delay related to such inspection could be reduced and it will also create a positive atmosphere for doing business, the statement said.

The two countries also decided to increase cooperation in areas such as leather, tobacco, gems and jewellery and tea.

Both the sides expressed interest in cooperation in exporting agricultural items such as apples, bananas, cake of soyabeans, cotton, coffee, cucumber and gherkins, flour of wheat, grapes, groundnuts, and maize.

The Ukrainian side proposed India to look into the possibility of exporting railroad and underground railway carriage products; participation of Ukrainian enterprises in the implementation of energy projects; and modernisation of existing and construction of new Indian metallurgical enterprises.

Further, the ministry said that bilateral investment relations between the countries have huge potential.

“More can be done to faster cooperation in sectors such as railways, aircraft, pharmaceuticals, metallurgy and tourism,” it added.

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