beyondbrics

Argentina already counts Brazil and China among its top trading partners, but don’t forget the “I” in Bric.

Buenos Aires sees bilateral trade with India growing 150 per cent this year, with exports rising 125 per cent to a record of nearly $1.8bn compared with $648m in 2009. It is already enthusiastically forecasting exports of $3bn by 2012 and total bilateral trade that year of $3.8bn. This year, Argentina is importing goods, including chemicals, fibres, car parts, motorbikes and colourings, from India worth $310m.

According to Débora Giorgi, the industry minister, Argentina is facing an “unbeatable opportunity given India’s growing demand for food”.

Argentina exports soy and sunflower oil, and is India’s major source of edible oils, which Mumbai says it plans to keep on buying as its needs expand. India also says it would buy wheat, too, as it has done occasionally in the past, if there were a shortfall in its domestic production.

But India is also encouraging Argentina to break into new markets – including pulse production. Lentil-loving India currently imports about 3m tons of pulses from Myanmar, Australia, Turkey and Canada, among others, and says Argentine soils are suitable for growing the pulses that Indians eat.

All that might suggest that this trade relationship is a one-way street for Argentina. Not at all. Land-rich Argentina is something of an unbeatable opportunity for Indian businesses too, as farmland at home comes under increasing pressure from its rapidly rising population.

India’s ambassador, Rengaraj Viswanathan, reckons some land in Argentina is cheaper than in Punjab, and so Indian officials are urging their businessmen to go straight to the source and buy or lease land in Argentina to grow oilseeds, wheat and pulses themselves – learning from the technology in Argentina, where yields are triple those achieved in India. It’s a strategy China is now seeking to pursue in the southern province of Río Negro. India has already started: One Indian company, Olam International, has already diversified into soya from peanuts and plans to double its acreage; another, SEA, has been sizing up Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil since 2006 and has formed a consortium of 14 companies to invest in agricultural land in the region, starting with a $40m investment in Uruguay, according to the Indian ambassador.

It doesn’t stop at food. Biodiesel – both to import and to produce – and wood and paper pulp are in demand by India. Tata is evaluating joint ventures for making cars in Argentina. And there are mining, steel and other ventures too. The recent hit Argentine cartoon Gaturro was co-produced by India’s Toonz Animation.

India’s voracious economic and population growth means it needs everything, not just food. Meanwhile, resource-rich Argentina, with an educated workforce and cheaper costs than in other parts of Latin America, is attracting Indian companies – there are now 13 based in Argentina (two of which opened in the last year) in the information technology, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and steel sectors.

Argentine production is not under threat from foreign customers encroaching on Argentina’s own know-how on its own soil. But India’s and China’s increasing interest in doing business in Argentina in sectors where Argentina excels is a reminder to Buenos Aires that diversifying exports is in its best interest, and the more value-added, the better.

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