India, Germany trade may rise to $26 billion this year

Published November 1, 2012 | 9:40 am

SAANJ NEWS

New Delhi: Trade between India and Germany is set to rise to 20 billion euro ($26.16 billion) in 2012 as compared to 18 billion euro ($23.56 billion) recorded in the previous year, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said Thursday.

“India and Germany have set a trade target of 20 billion euro to be achieved by 2012 and I am sure that we will be able to reach this target, if not cross it with efforts from both sides,” Sharma told reporters after meeting Phillipp Roesler, Germany’s vice-chancellor and minister of economy and technology.

Germany is one of the biggest trading partners of India. The balance of trade is in favour of Germany. In 2011, India’s export to Germany stood at $8.25 billion, while import was $15.31 billion.

Germany is the eighth largest foreign investor in India with total investment of around $4.9 billion, while Indian investors have pumped in $5.9 billion in Germany.

During the meeting, the visiting minister raised the concern of German pharmaceutical industry in the wake of granting of compulsory licence of a cancer drug to Natco, according to the official statement released after the meeting.

In March, the Controller of Patents, Mumbai, had granted the first-ever compulsory licence to Natco to make sorafenib tosylate, a generic version of Bayer’s high-priced anti-cancer drug Nexavar.

Indian patent law allows grant of a compulsory licence to an applicant if the patented drug is not available to the public at a reasonable price.

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