New Delhi - India wants to double its trade with the Arab region by 2010, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said. "We can do it," he said at the opening of the two-day second India-Arab Investment conclave here, organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
India's current trade with the Arab countries stands at US$114 billion, of which trade with the UAE is the highest.
United Arab Emirates Minister for Foreign Trade, Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid al Qasimi, pointed this out, saying "Our bilateral trade was already reaching US$48 billion and this includes only non-oil sector."
Speaking at a ministerial session, she said that although India was already the top trading partner for UAE, there was scope for increasing the economic cooperation.
Shaikha Lubna said that infrastructure development in her country mandated foreign partnership and that Indian businessmen were welcome to invest in the UAE in the area of renewable and nuclear energy. "I will be going on a roadshow in India from here and will be back again in mid-March. This shows the priority that we give to India," she observed.
She also mentioned the increasing air traffic between India and the UAE as a sign of their close cooperation, saying that there more than 475 flights between them every week.
On his part, Sharma said that India's economy was set to grow at about 7.5 per cent this year, and there was an effort to accelerate this momentum. India is also hungry for infrastructure development, and Arab sovereign funds should look at India as one of the most attractive investment destination in the world.
He also observed that although India purchased most of its oil from the Arab countries, trade was not restricted to this area alone. "Our trade is booming and even in difficult times, the trade has increased to the extent of 70 percent for some countries like Morocco and Algeria." India buys a major chunk of its oil requirements from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the former being India's biggest supplier of crude now.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor told the conclave that the total number of flights between India and Arab world far exceeded those between India and the rest of the world.
More than 250 businessmen from the Arab world, from Oman in the Gulf to Morocco on the Atlantic, are participating in the two day conclave. Ten ministers from these countries are attending the event.
The Sudanese minister of investment George Bureng Nyombe said that his country was looking forwards to investment from India in the hydropower sector, instead of only in the hydrocarbon sector. - Emirates News Agency, WAM
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