Economic promise lures world leaders to Delhi
John Chalmers
NEW DELHI, January 4: India plays host this month to a stream of world leaders who, undaunted by the country's political uncertainty, come in search of trade and investment.Among the five presidents and one prime minister scheduled to visit New Delhi in the next six weeks, only US president Bill Clinton postponed his trip after the coalition government fell and fresh elections were called. "To my mind there are two motivations," said former Indian foreign secretary Jyotindra Nath Dixit. "They want to make an assessment of where India is going politically. And they want to see if the economic promise transcends the political instability." India's economy has grown rapidly, though not as fast as those of Southeast Asian nations, since economic liberalisation took over from years of socialist and centralised planning in the early 1990s. Although still one of the world's poorest nations, India is widely seen as a powerful economic force of the 21st century. The diplomatic flurry gets under way late
on Monday with the arrival of Italian prime minister Romano Prodi. An Italian diplomat said Prodi would hold talks with caretaker prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral on the reform of NATO, on which Rome holds similar views to Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) members such as India, and New Delhi's refusal to join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. But, noting that Prodi would be accompanied by a delegation of about 90 Italian corporate leaders, he stressed that the thrust of the visit was to bolster economic ties. Prodi is due to attend the opening of a three-day business Partnership Summit in the southern city of Madras on Thursday, where there will be a special session on Italy. Italy is now India's 10th-biggest trade partner, with imports and exports more than doubling in the past five years, and ranks 15th among foreign investors with projects totalling $557 million approved. "Even if it doesn't hold the same kind of promise as China, in the longer term it does hold promises for investment and trade,"
the Italian diplomat said. The Madras summit will also be attended by Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski. Diplomats say he will be seeking to re-establish ties with a country which, like his own, is facing the challenges of economic transition. Hard on Kwasniewski's heels will be Greek president Costic Stephanopoulos. His visit, due to last a week from January 12, is slated as an exercise in bolstering already-friendly ties and giving them an economic dimension. He will be followed, health permitting, by Russian president Boris Yeltsin on January 18-19. During the Cold War, the former Soviet Union and India nurtured close ties, with Moscow India's biggest arms supplier and an important trade partner. Trade subsequently tapered off, choked by India's large unpaid debt. But both sides have sought to expand economic relations and India remains an arms buyer. Russian deputy prime minister Anatoly Chubais paved the way for Yeltsin during a visit to New Delhi last month, during which he said it was
realistic to expect bilateral trade would rise to $5 billion a year by 2000 from just $1.3 billion in 1997. French President Jacques Chirac arrives in New Delhi as chief guest for the Republic Day parade on January 26. France, which trails Britain, Germany and now Italy in the investment rankings in India, is keen to make a commercial push and also mend diplomatic fences over its arms sales to Pakistan, India's arch-rival.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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