Chile eyes markets in smaller Indian cities for its food products

New Delhi: Having made its presence felt in the agro-products segment in big Indian cities, Chile is now keen to tap the markets in smaller cities for its premium produce of wines, walnuts and other dry fruits.

The Latin American country is also keen to let its customers inform about the country of origin of the products and is set to launch a brand-building campaign through a masterclass on Chilean wines and other events.

"There is a lot of interest here. There is a big opportunity here, we are going to increase that. We are not only talking of big cities, but also looking at Tier-2, Tier-3 cities," Ignacio Fernandez Ruiz, General Director of ProChile, an arm of the Foreign Ministry that deals in the promotion of exports, told PTI.

Ruiz said ProChile is in talks with local importers and businesses to identify new markets in India.

Chile has been exporting walnuts, wines, cherries, kiwis, prunes to India, and is also keen to increase the basket of food products under the preferential trade agreement.

"We could go further in our trade relationship in terms of our trade agreement that can be enhanced in order to put more goods into it," Ruiz said.

Chile was the first Latin American country to individually sign a trade agreement with India and currently, both countries maintain a partial scope agreement that came into force in 2017.

Ruiz said his mission is also to make people aware that the popular products available in the markets here are from Chile.

"We do have some products here, but people do not know that the source of the products is Chile. That is probably the main target of this mission," he said.

ProChile is also inaugurating a new trade office in Mumbai, where it is holding a masterclass -- "Know Chile Through Wines".

"We are going to have a masterclass on Chilean wines -- the main features of the wines, their characteristics, the valleys where they are produced," Ruiz said.

He said the trade between India and Chile tops USD 2 billion with the balance of trade in favour of New Delhi.

"The important thing is that the trade relationship between the two countries has grown intensively during the last 15 years since we signed the partial agreement in trade in 2007.

"The trade between both countries has increased by 500 per cent or something like that. We can see that there is a necessity to go further," Ruiz said.