India has invited investments from Arab nations and sought long-term arrangements for guaranteed supply of fossil oil.
Inaugurating the two-day India-Arab Investment Conclave here on Friday, the Union minister for external affairs, Pranab Mukherjee said : ” an expansion of the investment footprint of Arab countries in India is long overdue and would be most warmly welcomed by the government and business alike.”
Responding to this proposal, the chief representative of the Arab League, Ahmed Salem Al-Wahishi said : Opportunities galore for India-Arab investment projects, but there is a greater need for wider dissemination of knowledge and information in this regard which the deliberation of this conclave should discuss and come up with concrete proposals.”
The two-day conclave organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and India-Arab Economic Forum has participation from Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Syria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen.
Mukherjee has suggested enormous scope for Arab investment in India in diverse areas such as IT, telecom, auto parts, healthcare, biotechnology, food-processing, education, manufacturing, construction and banking services. “In my view, however, the most important opening for the future is the chance for investible capital on one side to combine virtuously with the capacity and experience on the other side?.Here, the respective capacities and capabilities of India and the Arab countries can prove perfectly complementary. Large projects in infrastructure or in the education and training sector can be the perfect vehicles for absorbing the budding talents of our respective young work-forces,” he said.
Al-Wahishi said that global economic architecture had transformed in recent years with developing countries commanding finance, resources, cutting edge technologies and markets, leading to South-South cooperation. He said “the Arab world needs a development model to unlock its potential and here India can play a constructive role”
Mukherjee said that India depended upon import of fuels for meeting its energy needs and the need for such imports would grow with the projected growth rate in the GDP. High oil prices averaging more than $ 100 a barrel was a constraint on the country’s resources, he said. And suggested “our aim is to enter into long-term arrangements for guaranteed supply of energy?Civil nuclear cooperation with various countries will also help in the achievement of our energy security objectives.”
The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, would lead a delegation to Saudi Arabia in early May to initiate talks for funding infrastructure projects in India. This forms part of a concerted strategy to attract investment into India from capital rich countries in the Arab world, he said
Al-Wahishi informed that a Memorandum of Cooperation and Plan of Action for the India-Arab Forum would be signed by both sides which would provide an umbrella for enhancing India-Arab ties both at the governmental and non-governmental levels, including the private sector and would cover all aspects ? economic, social and cultural.
A series of events and activities are set to be organized over a period of time. An Indo-Arab Festival will be organized in November this year comprising an India-Arab Partnership conference and Arab Cultural Festival to be organized by FICCI in New Delhi under the auspices of India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
The Sudan Minister of state for Investment, Salman Sulieman Al Safi invited Indian investment in Sudan’s mining and fisheries sectors, apart from scaling up investments in the oil and gas. Safi who is leading a big delegation to the conclave from his country, emphasized the need for India and the Arab world to capitalise on the strong historical ties between the two regions.
The Dean of Arab Corps & Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to India, Saleh M Al-Ghamdi said the economic vibrancy in the Arab world and India provided a ripe ground to raise the level of economic engagement between the two regions. This, he said, could be achieved by looking beyond trade to two-way investments.