Mexico City — Mexico and India are seeing growth in plastics trade between the two countries.
Bilateral trade between India and Mexico, including plastics products, grew 31 percent in the first eight months of this year in relation to the same period in 2016, the head of the commercial wing at the Indian Embassy in Mexico said Nov. 7.
In an interview with Plastics News at Plastimagen México 2017, Ashwani Kumar said bilateral trade between the two nations totaled $6.3 billion in 2016, with India having a surplus of about $2 billion. Mexico's exports to India were $2 billion, he said, and India's to Mexico were $4.28 billion.
India's Ambassador to Mexico, Muktesh K. Pardeshi, said in a separate interview that trade between the two "is likely to top $8 billion this year."
According to India's Plastics Export Promotion Council (PLEXCONCIL), based in Mumbai, India's exports of plastics goods to Mexico grew 32.5 percent a year in the 10 years before this year.
"In the last five years, India´s plastics exports to Mexico have grown significantly, going from $51 million in 2012-13 to $97 million in 2016-17," it said.
PLEXCONCIL said that in 2016-17, India's exports of plastics products to 210-plus countries totaled $7.6 billion, with the main markets being the United States, China, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.
In August 2017, the country's plastics exports were valued at $706.34 million, up 14 percent from $619.82 million in the same month a year earlier. "The cumulative value of plastic exports from April 2017 to August 2017 was $3.355 billion as against $3.101 billion during the same period the previous year — a growth of 8.2 percent."
Pardeshi and Kumar spoke to Plastics News during a visit to the India pavilion at Plastimagen, occupied by 24 Indian companies.