Ashwani Kumar calls for increasing India-Turkey trade and investment flows

New Delhi, Mar 19 : Minister of State for Industry Dr. Ashwani Kumar today called for increasing trade and investment flows between India and Turkey.

Addressing an Indo-Turkish Business Summit titled "A New Beginning for Turkish-Indian Relations: Business and Investment Opportunities" here, Kumar said, "GDP in both the countries is dominated by private sector and find similarities in pluralist, secular democracy and free market economy, which enabled four times growth of trade between 2002-03 to 2006-07 at US 1.6 billion dollars."

Indian investments in Turkey are in diverse sectors viz., railway construction, electricity transmission, pipelines, consultancy services for earthquake emergency, hydro-carbon, CNG conversion and IT services.

"Turkish investments in India are in sectors of tourism and travel, home textile products and construction/maintenance of roads," he added.

India's exports to Turkey largely consist of manmade yarn fabrics, made-ups, transport equipments, cotton yarn, fabrics, drugs and pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals and plastic and linoleum products.

The main imports from Turkey are petroleum, crude products, machinery except electrical and electronics, inorganic chemicals and spices.

The seminar was also addressed by Kursad Tuzmen, Turkish Minister of State for Foreign Trade and Foreign Contacting Services, and attended by senior officials from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and representatives of apex chambers from both the countries.

ANI