|
At a path-breaking international conference on ‘Indo-Arab Relations,’ India has invited the Arab world to invest in the country.
India has invited capitalists from the Arab world to invest in the country. It also offered all type of help to Arab investors in India.
Addressing an international conference on ‘Indo-Arab Relat-ions: Partnership in Develop-ment,’ here recently, Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, invited more investments from the countries of the Arab world. He said that none of them, including the oil-rich countries, are in the list of top 10 investors in India.
Chidambaram said that geographical proximity, long tradition of trading ties, large number of Indian expatriates residing in the Gulf region and the unbroken relationship of cordiality between the two countries and other complementarities make India an attractive destination for investment.
To promote investments, he said that India was willing to sign more Bilateral Investment Protection Agreements (BIPA) with countries of the Arab world.
India has already signed such agreements with Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and was in the process of negotiating a pact with four other countries. He also said that India was negotiating a free trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The first round of negotiations was held in March 2006.
“While trade and exchange of human resources between India and the Arab world have been impressive, I should point out that investment flows have not been as impressive. I believe this is a situation that deserves to be corrected,” Chidambaram said.
He observed that oil producing countries today have large reserves and felt that India could be an attractive destination for investing a part of these reserves. While the Finance Minister called for strengthening economic partnership between the two sides, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad offered Arab countries, India’s help in executing rail tracks. “There is enough possibility of cooperation in the construction of railways in Arab countries,” Lalu Prasad told business leaders from Arab countries.
Ministers, diplomats, acade-mics, businessmen and opinion leaders from India and Arab countries attended the two-day conference. The conference was jointly organised by the Indo-Arab Economic Coopera-tion Forum and the Institute of Objective Studies.
Mazen M. Batterjee of the Saudi-based Batterjee group, specialising in trade and medical services, outlined a robust vision of economic partnership between India and the Arab world and called for intensification of two-way investments. He said the visit of the Saudi monarch, King Abdullah early this year - the first by a Saudi king in 51 years - “opened a new chapter in India’s relationship with the Arab world.” India has shown interest in the train link planned between the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah in Saudi Arabia.
Prof. Samir Qasim Fakhro, Bahrain-based adviser to UNESCO said: “India is a real model for the Arab world as the former’s democracy with free thinking and empowerment of people makes it ideal for the Arab world to become a partner in the development in each other’s region.”
Three presentations were followed by an inter-active session in which former chief justice of India, A. M. Ahmadi also participated. The speakers were Dr. Rao P. Rajmohan, chairman, United Telecom Ltd, Navaid Khan of Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Gul Iqbal, who has been associated with IBM for three decades
(The writer can be reached at andalib2001@yahoo.com)
|
|
