Boomtime for Japanese business in India

New Delhi, Mar 31 (UNI) Japanese entrepreneurs are experiencing an ''Indian Boom'' with high expectations of business chances in India and a lot of similarities between today's India and Japan of the 1960s.

Japanese Ambassador in New Delhi, Yasukuni Enoki, said in his address after signing an agreement for the largest ODA loan package to India ever since Japan launched its financial assistance programme in 1958, that its soft loan assistance to India had expanded to cover a wide range of areas.

The programme was now running into fifth decade with the cumulative loans committed to India having reached to more than two trillion, 631 billion yen so far.

To sustain the high economic growth and further build the momentum, the two countries need to develop infrastructure and improve environment, he said.

Drawing similarities between the Japan of 1960 when it was a booming economy, and today's India, the Ambassador said that as its development partner, Japan in its loan assistance strategy was especially supporting construction of economic infrastructure to create desired conditions to absorb large investments and promote socio-economic growth.

In the case of Japan, the World Bank had provided financial assistance for construction of infrastructure projects which strategically played a great role in invigorating Japanese economic activities.

''Similarly Japan would be happy to play the role as then played by the World Bank through providing financial support to infrastructure projects in India,'' he added.

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