International Relations - Current Affairs for April, 2016

Union Cabinet chaired by PM Modi on 27th April 2016 approved an MoU between India and Papua New Guinea in the field of medical science and healthcare.

• Bilateral MoU will encourage cooperation between Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of India and Ministry of Health and HIV/AIDS Papua New Guinea.

EU has lifted a 15 month long ban on Sri Lankan fisheries exports. Before the ban was imposed in January 2015, EU accounted for one third of the fishing exports in Sri Lanka in terms of volume and 40% of the exports in terms of revenue against total fish export earnings of USD 267 million in that year, from which Sri Lanka got USD 108 million from Europe. Ban was imposed because Sri Lanka engaged in illegal fishing.

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given its approval for expansion of India - Chile Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) between India and Chile.

• India’s export basket with Chile is diversified and keeping in view the wide variety of tariff lines offered by Chile, the expanded PTA would immensely benefit India.
• Under the expanded PTA, Chile has offered concessions to India on 1798 tariff lines with Margin of Preference (MoP) ranging from 30%-100% and India has offered concessions to Chile on 1031 tariff lines at 8-digit level with MoP ranging from 10%-100%.
• Under the proposed expanded PTA, 86% of India's exports to Chile will get covered with concessions, which is likely to result in doubling of our exports in the near future.

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi gave its approval for signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Bhutan on technical cooperation in the field of capacity building, benchmarking and bilateral exchange in infrastructure engineering.

• India and Bhutan have had a long standing diplomatic, economic and cultural relations with each other.
• The India-Bhutan friendship treaty signed in New Delhi in February, 2007 also strengthens the mutual relations.
• MoU is part of Article 2,7 and 8 of the India-Bhutan friendship treaty.
• The MoU will provide an Umbrella for educational, scientific & technical research and environment protection which are also stated aim of the India-Bhutan foundation established in August 2003.

Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and German International Cooperation (GIZ) on 13th April 2016 signed an Implementation agreement for Ganga Rejuvenation under the Namami Gange Programme.

• The agreement was signed in New Delhi.
• Project will collaborate with National and international initiatives including Indo-German bilateral projects like Support to National Urban Sanitation Policy (SNUSP) and Sustainable Environment-friendly Industrial Production (SEIP).
• The project duration is three years that is from 2016 to 2018 and the German contribution in the project will be to the tune of 22.5 crore rupees.

This includes one on terror financing and another on promoting trade between two countries on the second and final day of the Indian PM’s bilateral visit to Saudi Arabia. A total of 5 agreements were this signed including the following:

• An MoU was signed between the financial intelligence units on cooperation in the exchange of intelligence related to money laundering, terrorism financing and related crimes
• Invest India and Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SABIA) signed a framework agreement on investment promotion cooperation.
• The external affairs ministry and the Saudi labour ministry signed an agreement on labour cooperation for recruitment of general category workers.
• A fourth agreement was signed between Export Promotion Council for Handicraft (EPCH) and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage for cooperation in the field of handicrafts.
• Another agreement for technical cooperation was signed between the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organisation (SASO).

FICCI has just inked an MoU with Australia India Business Council aimed at strengthening and promoting business ties with Australia. Agreement was signed in the presence of visiting Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

• AIBC is a national membership organisation with active chapters in Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.