India, Peru to resume free trade talks in June, eye copper deal

India and Peru are set to resume free trade talks in June, with both sides also weighing a critical-minerals chapter that could give India a firmer grip on future copper supplies. Peru’s ambassador to India, Javier Paulinich, said, “In principle, in June we are going to resume the negotiations.”

The talks have been underway since 2017 and are no longer exploratory. The sixth round was held in Lima from February 12 to 14, 2024, and the seventh followed in New Delhi from April 8 to 11, 2024, showing that negotiators have already worked through multiple technical chapters. India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry has described the effort as a continuing trade agreement process, not a new launch.

Copper now sits at the center of the negotiations. Peru is the world’s third-largest copper producer and produced about 2.7 million metric tons in 2024, while attracting $4.96 billion in foreign investment into the sector last year. For India, that matters because its industrial expansion and clean-energy transition will require far more metal than it produces at home. Indian copper imports rose 4% to 1.2 million metric tons in the fiscal year ending March 2025, and demand could rise to as much as 9.8 million tons by 2047. Official estimates suggest India may need to source 91% to 97% of its copper concentrate requirements from abroad by then.

That import dependence has pushed New Delhi to think beyond tariff cuts and toward supply-chain security. Hindalco Industries is looking to buy copper from Peru, a sign that private industry is already testing the commercial logic of a deeper relationship. The broader policy calculation is clear: India wants access to essential minerals before shortages tighten global markets, while Peru wants a steadier commercial link to one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies.

The diplomatic frame is equally important. India and Peru established relations in March 1963, India opened a resident mission in Lima in September 1969, and its first resident ambassador took charge in November 1973. Since the 1990s, Indian officials have said the relationship has taken on more economic and business content, helped by Peru’s membership in APEC. The third India-Peru Joint Commission Meeting, co-chaired in Lima on September 18, 2024, by Jaideep Mazumdar and John Peter Camino Cannock, showed how active that agenda has become.

Peru’s mining heft gives the trade talks a strategic edge that goes well beyond bilateral commerce. IMF and World Bank materials describe copper as central to Peru’s development and note that the country has the world’s second-largest copper reserves, even as projects can be slowed by local-community conflict and weak execution of resource revenues. For India, a deal with Peru would not just open a new market. It would help anchor a supply line across the Pacific in a more fragmented global trading system, where access to minerals is increasingly as important as access to finished goods.