Overview
- Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal met Venezuela’s Ecological Mining Minister Héctor Silva on the sidelines of the 30th CII Partnership Summit in Visakhapatnam.
- Venezuela signaled interest in cooperation on critical minerals and in attracting Indian investment beyond the oil trade.
- Goyal called for reactivating the India–Venezuela Joint Committee Mechanism, which has not met in about a decade.
- He pointed to ONGC’s existing operations in Venezuela as a platform for deeper mining collaboration and proposed Venezuelan acceptance of the Indian Pharmacopeia with scope for auto-sector ties.
- India said it will engage domestic businesses to explore prospects in Venezuela, set against a trade slide from $6.397 billion in 2019–20 to $96 million in 2023–24 after which U.S. sanctions easing in 2024 enabled renewed heavy crude imports.