Korean brands such as Hyundai, LG and Samsung are household names in India. Indeed, there seems to be a strong India-South Korea connect, aided by phenomenal popularity of Korean pop among several Indians. The Dollar Business caught up with the South Korean Ambassador to India, H.E. Hyun Cho, to understand the current state of affairs of Indo-Korean trade ties and to discuss ways to bolster them further.
TDB: How do you see the long-held friendly Indo-Korean relationship? Why, despite the strong economic foundation, has the bilateral trade not realised its full potential?
Hyun Cho (HC): In the recent times, I believe that both the countries have witnessed substantial progress in their relations with fruitful cooperation in trade and investment, culture, politics, technology, and many other areas.
Korean companies are one of the very few foreign companies that have entered the Indian market right after the economic liberalisation in the early 90s. Twenty years later, they have become household names in India, leading various segments of the industry. Not only do these companies contribute to India’s manufacturing growth, but also to the country’s export performance. For instance, last year, Hyundai, India’s largest car exporter, exported 1.61 lakh cars to 92 different countries. They also utilise India’s software expertise; parts of Samsung’s recently launched Galaxy S7 were developed in its R&D centres in Noida and Bengaluru. Hyundai’s Hyderabad R&D centre also supports its headquarter in Korea and develops cars for the Indian market.
Despite all these positive developments, going forward, there is an ample room for improvement. On the same note, I would like to add that a couple of months back, a meeting was held between the two commerce ministers to upgrade the bilateral free trade deal – it’s because we believe there has been an urgent need for a revision since both the countries have not been able to fully utilise the existing agreement. In the meeting, “Korea Plus,” a special initiative to promote and facilitate Korean investment in India, was finally launched as well.
This story is from the November 2016 edition of The Dollar Business.
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This story is from the November 2016 edition of The Dollar Business.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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