
Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman begins Saturday a four-day visit to India to co-chair, along with Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, the fourth India- Argentina Joint Commission Meeting (JCM).

By R. Viswanathan - Yes. India's exports to Colombia have crossed the billion dollar mark, reaching 1.124 billion dollars in 2012. Colombia is the third biggest destination of India's exports to Latin America after Brazil and Mexico.

By R. Viswanathan - Yes… steady is the word to describe the growth of India's trade with Mexico, the second largest market of Latin America. The bilateral trade reached 6.29 billion dollars in 2012 from 4.15bn in 2011, 2.9bn in 2008 and 1.03bn in 2003.

By R. Viswanathan - India's trade with Brazil reached 10.6 billion dollars in 2012 (January to December), increasing by 15% from 9.2bn in 2011. Twenty years back, in 1992 bilateral trade was just 177 million dollars. Ten years back, in 2002, it was 1.2 billion dollars.
India's exports to Brazil declined in 2012 to 5.04bn from 6bn dollars in 2011.

India's trade with Latin America has gone down in 2012 in comparison to 2011. This is the second time the trade went down in the last decade when it was steadily growing. The earlier decline was in 2009 at the height of global crisis. Trade with the top seven countries of the region declined 15% from 25.274bn dollars in 2011 to 21.302bn in 2012.

Seeking to build “one of the great partnerships” of the 21st century, British Prime Minister David Cameron begins a three-day official visit to India on Monday during which he will meet his counterpart Manmohan Singh and discuss issues of common interest.

India has shown great interest in mining iron ore, granite, gold and diamond in Uruguay and has entered into a deal for exploring and encouraging investment opportunities in the mining sector, according to Indian sources visiting Uruguay.

While the mantle of the world largest beef exporting nation has traditionally been a three-way race between Australia, Brazil and the US, 2012 has seen India race ahead of the pack, with expectations for Indian beef exports to grow again in 2013.

By Rengaraj Viswanathan - In India, people are amused and puzzled, depressed and disinterested and occasionally inspired by the long and loud, colourful and typical American show that goes by the name of the presidential election.

India and Brazil have the highest government debt ratios at almost 70% of GDP among top ten emerging market economies, according to a report by Deutsche Bank.