India Commerce Secy Rajesh Agrawal to visit Chile this month to review CEPA talks: Official
India's Commerce Secretary is scheduled to visit Chile this month to review progress on Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) negotiations
The proposed CEPA would expand on India's existing trade arrangement with Chile to cover new areas, including digital services and critical minerals
Chile is among India's leading trading partners in the Latin American region
India is separately pursuing trade agreement talks with Mercosur, Mexico, and Kenya, reflecting a wider push to deepen trade ties with Latin America and Africa
From PTA to CEPA — Evolving India-Chile Trade Architecture
India and Chile's trade relationship currently rests on a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) signed in March 2006 and in force from August 2007, which grants tariff concessions on a limited, negotiated list of tariff lines rather than comprehensive liberalisation. The scope of this PTA was expanded in 2016-17. Both sides have since signed Terms of Reference to launch CEPA negotiations, aiming for a broader, deeper agreement.
Key Details
- The original India-Chile PTA covers roughly 2,300 tariff lines with preferential (not zero) tariffs
- A CEPA, unlike a PTA, typically covers goods, services, investment, and new-generation issues such as digital trade — placing it in the same category as India's CEPAs with the UAE (2022) and other comprehensive partners
- The CEPA under negotiation is explicitly designed to add critical minerals cooperation and digital services, sectors not meaningfully covered under the 2007 PTA
- Negotiators have reported substantial progress, with a large share of the agreement text agreed, though sensitive market-access items (in areas such as agriculture and specific goods) remain contested
The Commerce Secretary's visit is a negotiating-track review of exactly this PTA-to-CEPA upgrade, aimed at resolving remaining sticking points to move from a narrow tariff-concession pact toward a comprehensive partnership.
Critical Minerals Cooperation as a Trade-Agreement Priority
Critical minerals — inputs like lithium, copper, and rare earth elements essential for clean-energy and electronics manufacturing — have become a standard chapter in India's newer trade negotiations, reflecting supply-chain security concerns as India scales up battery and electronics manufacturing.
Key Details
- Chile holds among the world's largest lithium and copper reserves, making it strategically significant for India's electric-vehicle and battery supply chains
- India established KABIL (Khanij Bidesh India Limited) in 2019, a joint venture of NALCO, HCL, and MECL, specifically to secure critical mineral assets overseas
- Critical minerals chapters increasingly appear in Indian trade negotiations (alongside the CEPA talks with Chile) as part of a broader strategy to reduce import dependence on a small number of processing hubs
- India released its first Critical Minerals Mission-related policy steps in 2023-24, formally listing 30 minerals designated as critical for the economy
Including critical minerals as a named component of the upcoming CEPA reflects India's deliberate effort to use trade agreements as a channel for securing upstream mineral access, given Chile's global standing in lithium and copper production.
India's Latin America Trade Diversification Strategy
Trade agreement talks with Chile sit alongside parallel Indian negotiations with Mercosur (the South American customs union of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay), Mexico, and Kenya, indicating a broader strategy of diversifying India's trade partnerships beyond traditional markets in the US, EU, and Gulf.
Key Details
- Mercosur is a customs union (not a single country), meaning any India-Mercosur trade deal — like the SACU negotiations in Africa — would be negotiated with the bloc collectively rather than with individual member states
- Mexico has emerged as one of India's largest trading destinations in Latin America in recent years, alongside Brazil
- Kenya negotiations reflect India's parallel push to expand African trade ties, distinct from Latin America but part of the same diversification logic (reducing concentration risk from any single region or bloc)
- These talks come against the backdrop of India's broader FTA push, which has included agreements with the UAE (2022), Australia (2022), and the EFTA bloc (2024/2025)
The Chile CEPA visit is one strand of a wider Indian trade diplomacy push to sign or upgrade agreements across multiple regions simultaneously, part of the strategy toward the government's stated $1 trillion export target.
- India-Chile PTA: signed March 2006, in force August 2007, covers about 2,300 tariff lines
- Scope of PTA expanded: 2016-17
- New CEPA under negotiation to add: digital services and critical minerals chapters
- Comparator agreement: India-UAE CEPA, operationalised 1 May 2022
- KABIL (Khanij Bidesh India Limited), India's overseas critical minerals SPV, established 2019
- India's parallel Latin America/Africa trade talks: Mercosur, Mexico, Kenya