India's burgeoning domestic demand provides immense opportunity for Latin American trade, the Indian Ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar, said on July 27.

India's growing liberalisation and a strong domestic demand has helped fuel economic growth in recent years, Shankar said at a seminar co-organised by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Woodrow Wilson Centre and Asian Society to unveil a new study calling for closer economic ties between India and Latin America.

"India's trade profile is going to change and that will provide great trade opportunities for Latin America," Shankar said.

The study looks into recent developments and economic trends in India and their possible impact for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The study argues that India, with an expected gross domestic product of 8.5 per cent this year, up from 6.9 per cent during the global financial crisis, has the potential to mirror the recent economic performance of China. "Potential exchange of goods and services between Latin America is nothing short of extraordinary," said

With 1.1 billion people and a scarcity of natural resources, relative to other continent-size nations, India has the potential to be a large buyer of agricultural and mineral goods, Latin America's main exports, according to the study.

Currently, India represents just 0.8 per cent of this region's overall trade, compared with China's 7.7 per cent share.