Delegates pose for a group photo at the Vietnam-India meeting in HCM City on February 9 (Photo VNA) HCM City (VNA) - Trade in paper between Vietnam and India is quite low and there issignificant potential for growth, a meeting between Indian and Vietnamese papercompanies heard in HCM City on February 9.
K Srikar Reddy, theIndian consul general in the city, said bilateral trade had grown more than 60fold in the last two decades to 10.13 billion USD in 2016-17, noting that Indiais now among the top 10 trading partners of Vietnam.
However, Indiaexported paper worth 38.17 million USD to Vietnam last year, only 3.26 percentof its global exports, he said.
India imported paperworth 2.7 billion USD, with just 7.78 million USD from Vietnam, he said.
There is thus muchscope to promote bilateral investment and trade ties in the sector, he added.
Hoang Trung Son,vice chairman of the Vietnam Pulp and Paper Association, said the paperindustry has seen outstanding growth of 11 percent a year and can meet 64 percentof demand.
Last year Vietnamimported around two million tonnes of paper at 1.7 billion USD, mainly fromAsian economies such as China, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, andJapan.
According to Son, Vietnamhas started importing paper from India with the volume increasing year afteryear. Thanks to the Free Trade Agreement between ASEAN and India (AIFTA), theimport tax on main paper lines is decreasing gradually, increasing thecompetitiveness of Indian paper.
Son said theassociation believes that there is plenty of opportunity for cooperationbetween Vietnam and India in both paper production and trading.
The meeting wasattended by a delegation of 44 Indian companies belonging to the Federation ofPaper Traders Association (FPTA).
According to theFPTA, India’s paper demand is expected to grow by 6-7 percent in 2016-22 andreach 19.9 million tonnes a year by 2022.
A shortage of rawmaterials and higher costs are preventing the industry from increasingproduction and the country has to rely on imports to meet demand, it said.
Shekar Chandak,leader of the visiting business delegation, said the main purpose of the visitis to explore opportunities for both exporting paper to Vietnam and buying fromit.
“India imports a lot of wood chips also forthe paper industry. We are importing from Australia, Japan, and South Africa.
“And Vietnam is abig producer of wood chips, so there is a huge opportunity for importing woodchips also,” Shekar Chandak said.
He added that India alsohas some special paper which it can export to Vietnam. -VNA
VNA
