This is CII's second mission to Latin America within a period of five months.

A press release by CII said following the success of its first mission to Latin American countries in May, 2000 under the Focus-Latin American countries (LAC) programme, CII has decided to take another delegation to Latin America.

It said, "considering the fact that India's total trade with LACs in the last seven years witnessed more than 200 per cent growth and yet India's exports constituted only 0.2 per cent of the import basket of this region, CII has been making concerted efforts with the ministry of commerce, Government of India, and the nodal agencies in LAC to project India's strength and to enhance the level of exchanges.

Envisaging the growth prospects for exports from India to the region, CII's second mission would explore opportunities in the sectors like chemicals and plastics, drugs, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, engineering technologies and products including machinery and equipment (focussing power generation, sugar industry, textile industry, railways, mining etc), computer software and services, electronics and telecommunication equipment and transportAlthough LACs balance of trade has always remained adverse to the region, the statistics reveal that contrarily India's exports to the region ($348.01 million) were much lesser than the imports ($407.70 million) with balance of trade in LAC's favour.

Thus, in light of the liberalisation of the economies, also starting of a direct shipping line now, CII believes that there exists tremendous scope for increasing exports from India to the region.

CII's mission to Latin America was proceeding with the two-pronged strategy of promoting India's image as a technically competent, quality conscious manufacturer of diversified products and initiating business development through more one-to-one meetings

According to CII, ministry of commerce should sign more trade MoUs, free trade and bilateral agreements and also take up marketing activities extensively to strengthen trade with the region.