NEW DELHI, June 23. /TASS/. The BRICS trade cooperation (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has great potential for development, Dr. Ajay Sahai, CEO of Federation of Indian Export Organisations, told a TASS correspondent on Thursday.
"It (BRICS - TASS) is an important trading bloc for us. And roughly 15% of India’s trade is with four of the BRICS nations: Brazil, China, Russia and South Africa. [Although] our export is much less, our export is just 8.8% of our total exports. But import is on [the rise] and it is amounting to close to 20%," he said.
New Delhi, he emphasized, is satisfied with the level of trade cooperation with the association countries. "We are happy with the rest of the countries, particularly with South Africa, Brazil and now recently with Russia because our exports have picked up substantially. So <..> we are looking into further cementing our trade relationship and I am pretty sure the region is important also for strategic consideration. I think that <…> these five countries are extremely important," the expert stressed.
Nevertheless, Sahai pointed out that "with some countries like China we have some…market access issues". "But we are sure that at the bilateral level we will be discussing it and sorting it out," he assured.
The Indian expert believes the prospects of creating a common trade currency within the bloc are favorable.
"We can look into having common trade currency so that we further push or look for local currency trade also, particularly for example with Russia. We are looking into Russia-Ruble trade, because [of] the specific situation <…> we are in," he said.
"The BRICS bank is also now working. We should move towards a more cogent goal so far as our economies are concerned," Sahai concluded.