NEW DELHI, Jan 22 (KUNA) — India Tuesday stated that it would soon conlude a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Arab League to enhance all-round cooperation with the Arab countries.
Addressing a function here today on the release of the FICCI-IAEF (Indo-Arab Economic Forum) publication, N Ravi, Secretary (East) in Indias Ministry of External Affairs said, the composite cooperation approach set out by the MoU laid down the path that India and the Arab states would have to walk to take economic, political and cultural relations to a new trajectory.
The function was organised by Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and attended by the Ambassadors of League of Arab member States in India.
Ravi stressed the importance of framing a development model for expanding relations between India and Arab countries, which would reflect the specific projects and areas of cooperation. The development model with each country had become important because of the different strengths available in each of the Arab nations, he said. Ravi commended the idea of a Working Group to suggest areas of cooperation with each country and suggested that the 4.5 million plus Indian people working in the Arab states, both unskilled and skilled workers, could be a source of ideas for deepening Indo-Arab cooperation. The Working Group could liaise with Indian embassies in the Arab states to get a feedback of Indian expatriates in the respective countries, he added.
On the occasion Ravi, Saleh M Al-Ghamdi, Ambassador of Saudi Arabia Dean of Arab Diplomatic Corps and Ahmed Salem Al-Wahishi, Head of the League of Arab States Mission in India, released the FICCI-IAEF publication entitled, India-Arab Trade Investment: Trends and Opportunities.
On the occasion Amit Mitra, Secretary General, FICCI, unveiled the FICCI-IAEF calendar of events for 2008. An India-Arab Investment Projects Conclave is slated to be held on April 18-19, 2008 at Delhi. Arab Festival Celebrations in India will witness a Partnership Conference on November 10-12, 2008 also at New Delhi and Arab Cultural Festival will be organised on November 7-14 also at Delhi. Dr. Mitra sought the cooperation of the Ambassadors of Arab countries to mobilise participation for the India-Arab Investment Projects Conclave and urged them to bring projects which could be offered to Indian public and private sector companies. The Conclave would focus on infrastructure, real estate SEZs; engineering construction; manufacturing; banking, venture capital insurance; healthcare; education; IT ITES; tourism lifestyle; chemicals petrochemicals; minerals metals, agri food processing; transportation; and small medium enterprises. Later talking to reporters on the sidelines of the function, Al-Wahishi said: “We have proposed the draft of the MoU to the Indian government and hopefully it will be signed by March 2008.”