New Delhi [India], June 25 (ANI): Former Union Minister KJ Alphons said that India and Latin America have plenty of areas to cooperate, especially in rare earths and the petroleum sector.

Alphons, while speaking to ANI on Wednesday, said that South America is a huge source country which India needs to get closer to.

'I think it's a fantastic effort. See India and Latin America, we are doing so little, but we can do so much. Latin America is an incredible country. It's a beautiful country with very colourful people, a colourful culture, one of the oldest civilizations, Aztec civilization. But we are doing so little. Search for rare earth minerals and for petroleum products and electronics. South America is a huge, huge source country which we need to kind of get closer to. And again, for Indian exports, we are doing so little. Indian tourists, so few are going there,' he said.

He further said that there are many things which unite India and Latin America and both are yet to realise its potential.

'These are areas in which we need to work so much harder and I think there are many things which unite India and Latin America but we have not realized the potential at all. I think we just need to work so much harder. But for that Indian industrialists need to go out. They can't just be happy selling around wherever they were traditionally selling. The traditional sources will dry up and now today you have a world which is becoming very protective and therefore we just need to go out and capture the market and Latin America is huge and also for Latin American countries,' he said.

Alphons further said that Latin America can adopt the digital payment system India has.

'India is a huge market. And I was telling the audience here, India has the best digital payment system. I think Latin Americans countries can adopt that. And it is very, very cheap. And it's something which really brings dignity to people, improves business. Yeah, so there are so many things like that by which Indians, Latin American, and Caribbean can work together. And I think this is a very, very good initiative,' he said.

He said that the trade between India and Latin America is too low, and must improve dramatically.

'I think as of now, I think it's about $21 billion. I think it's just peanuts. And Indian exports to the Caribbean constitutes, I think, less than 1 and 1.5% of imports by Latin America and Caribbean. So it's very miniscule percent of Indian goods are being imported to Latin America and Caribbean. This can increase dramatically. So does the Latin American exports to India. It's a very, very tiny percentage. So it also needs to really improve dramatically. And there is plenty of scope,' he said. (ANI)