He was addressing a seminar here on Friday on the EU-India Partenariat 1999, a two-day trade meet, which will begin in New Delhi from March 15 to bring together about 400 Indian and 400 EU small and medium-sized enterprises to discuss business partnerships, joint ventures, collaborations and strategic alliances. This EC initiative will offer an opportunity to not only meet the largest of European companies coming to India, but be part of a promotional effort in the 15 EU countries supported at the highest institutional level.

Marius praised the initiatives taken by successive governments at the centre to remove the inspector raj and open up the economy. He said that chemicals and plastic processing, environmental technology, lightengineering, electronics and information technology hardware, food processing and packaging and software and services would be covered during the two-day event.

The EU is India's largest trading partner, accounting for about one-fourth of total trade. It is also the largest investor in India. It accounted for 21 per cent of the foreign direct investment inflows in India from 1994-95 to 1996-97.

In 1996, the EU's exports to India at Rs 44,000.30 crore exceeded its imports at Rs 38,000.5 crore. In 1997, EU exported Rs 42,000.12 crore to India and imported Rs 39,000.23 crore. Indian firms have a modest presence in the EU by way of investments.

There are around 120 investments, with an average investment of Rs 1.50 crore per company. With some notable exceptions, most investments are in marketing and distribution.

The Council of EU Chamber of Commerce in India executive director Fernando Vidal-Folch said that in recent years, opportunities for business cooperation between EU and Asia had multiplied. TheEuropean Commission, in keeping with the priorities set out in its 1994 communication "Towards a new Asian strategy", has developed a range of initiatives to facilitate the taking up by industry of such opportunities.

Vidal-Folch said that one of the important initiatives to be launched within this framework was the Asia-Invest programme. Supported by the European community over a five-year period with a budget of ECU 45 million, the programme is intended to facilitate investments and help small and medium- sized enterprises from the EU and Asia to internationalise their business strategies and to do business with each other for the first time. He said that the EU-India Partenariat 1999 was one of the instruments part- financed by Asia-Invest to promote business partnerships between Indian and European small and medium enterprises.