Walonia suggests stronger economic ties with India

New Delhi, Mar 20 (UNI) Minister for Economy, Employment and Foreign Trade, for the Wallonia Region of Belgium Jean Claude Marcourt today said Wallonia and India should become partners in an economic relationship.

At an interactive session organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) with the Minister and a team of Business leaders from Wallonia, Mr Claude expressed his admiration for the economic turnaround of India in the last 15 years ''ever since it started on the path of economic reforms''.

Minister of State for Planning, M V Rajasekharan stressed that many Indian companies were already taking interest in Belgium in sectors like energy, ports, software and biotechnology and today Belgium was the second largest trade partners of India among E U countries with a bilateral trade volume of seven Billion dollars in 2004-05.

He said that 30 Belgian companies were functioning in India in sectors like IT, Shipping,&Logistics but new sectors like Biotechnology, Nano technology, environment, port management and reconstruction of heritage sites have great potential. Patrick de Beyter, Ambassador of Belgium in India stated that Belgium's trade with India was mostly dependent on diamonds but besides that, sectors like food processing, logistics also offered huge opportunities.

Talking about Wallonia, which is one of three regions of Belgium Mr Claude stated that it had also started on a new wave of economic reforms called the Marshal Plan for the last few months for stimulating business and economic recovery.

This he said will be done by concrete steps such as reducing Corporate taxes and promoting newer skills and identifying areas which can make Walonia a leader.

He said Wallonia had an open and welcoming environment where 60,000 innovative enterprises in fields of biotechnology, Life sciences, Pharmaceuticals, engineering, call centres, logistics, wood industry and energy sectors had brought about a turnaround in the economic status of the region by using originality, creativity and high technology.

UNI ARB SR KP1957