During a meeting today between Turkish State Minister for Foreign Trade Kursad Tuzmen and India Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath, New Delhi invited Turkish Companies to explore the Indian markets and make investments, especially in the infrastructure sector as it has the promise of sustained high levels of returns.

During the meeting, Kamal Nath also said that Indian companies were committed to make investments in Turkey, according to an official statement.

Both sides agreed that they could collaborate in RD and their commercial spin-offs in the fields of bio-technology, nano-technology and information technology, the statement said. Indian investments in Turkey are in diverse sectors -- railway construction, electricity transmission, pipelines, consultancy services for earthquake emergency, hydro-carbon, CNG conversion and IT services.

Turkish investments in India are in sectors of tourism travel, home textile products, construction and maintenance of roads. During the discussions, both sides agreed to strengthen the bilateral trade relationship particularly in the small medium enterprises sector.

Kamal Nath stated that Indo-Turkish trade is now on the upswing and the bilateral trade has grown from 1,193 million usd in 2005-06 to 1, 653 million usd during 2006-07.

"Both sides noted that considerable untapped opportunities remain and both countries are seriously working at exploiting this potential for growth.

It was felt that B-2-B engagement would take the bilateral trade relationship to higher levels and government on both sides need to facilitate B-2-B engagement and act as catalyst," the statement said.

Indias exports to Turkey largely consist of manmade yarn fabrics, made-ups, transport equipments, cotton yarn, fabrics, drugs pharmaceuticals fine chemicals, and plastic linoleum products.

The main imports from Turkey are petroleum, crude products, machinery except electrical electronics, inorganic chemicals, and spices.

KUNA, AA

Güncelleme Tarihi: 19 Mart 2008, 10:26