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Two-Way Trade: Slow but Steady
Find a Need and Fill It
Jamal Qureshi’s story illustrates the opportunities in India for small
and mid-sized exporters. Qureshi founded a small trading company,
JQ America Corp., with his wife in 1998, operating out of
their Fremont apartment. JQ America initially shipped valves,
pumps, bearings and other industrial equipment to oil companies in
the Middle East and Africa.
In 2005, while at a college reunion in India, Qureshi heard about a
medical school, 750-bed hospital and network of clinics to open in
his home town of Bhopal, part of a settlement growing out of the
1984 Union Carbide pesticide plant disaster when some 4,000
residents were killed. Qureshi learned from local contacts that the
procurement process for private and state hospitals was limited.
Most purchased equipment and supplies through a tender/bid
process, from a small number of suppliers. “Only hospitals in major
cities buy directly from overseas,” Qureshi says. “In outlying areas
they buy through local suppliers, very few of which import products.”
The trade environment had become more relaxed in terms of
central bank approval of transactions, the distribution infrastructure
and so on, he adds, but the procurement mindset had not
changed.
Buyers proved receptive to high-quality medical supplies from the
U.S. once they became available. JQ America landed a three-year,
$22.3 million contract with the Bhopal Medical Trust to supply clothing,
radiology and endoscopy equipment, surgical instruments and
other items for the Trust’s new 750-bed hospital and network of
clinics. Qureshi says he has since entered discussions with hospitals
in Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad.
Services trade, as indicated earlier, is difficult to quantify. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s
2009 National Trade Estimate for India places U.S. exports of private commercial
services of all kinds at $9.4 billion in 2007, steadily rising from $6.6 billion and $5.2 billion in
2005. Imports of Indian services also rose from $5.0 billion in 2005 to $6.7 billion in 2006 and
$9.6 billion in 2007. Sales of services in India by U.S.-owned affiliates reached $4.2 billion in
2006, nearly double the $2.2 billion seen in 2004. Likewise, sales of services in the U.S. by Indian
firms in 2006 totaled an estimated $3.1 billion, up sharply from $1.8 billion two years earlier.
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