Abdullah said this when he met Spain's secretary of state for trade and tourism, Mr Don Juana Costa, here to discuss measures to boost the two way trade.

He said he was also concerned over the low level of FDI inflow/approval ratio as far as Spain was concerned. In this regard, he proposed a special meeting of officials of his ministry with the Spanish businessmen to discuss the various impediments in the way of greater inflows into the country.

Tourism promotion should be given a greater thrust by both the countries, he added. The Spanish side indicated that it would like to focus on certain specific sectors such as infrastructure and industry for greater economic cooperation. Mr Don Juan Costa also emphasised that the Indian government should work out an institutional mechanism by which foreign investors could have direct contacts with certain proactive state governments as the actual implementation of projects involving FDI needed a lot of support from the respective governments.

On WTO, the Spanish side indicated that it would like to work in close cooperation with India and it would not want the multilateral trading mechanism to fail.

During 1999-2000, India's exports to Spain were valued at $ 559.35 million, while its imports were to the tune of $ 138.09 million. During April-September 2000, Indo-Spanish trade stood at $ 389.01 million, of which India's exports constituted $ 319.68 million.

Investment approvals from Spain have risen during the last nine years from a mere $ 0.2 million in 1991 to a total of $ 92 million up to November 2000.