Japanese cos. to make huge investments in India: Kamal Nath

On Board Air India One, Dec 16 (UNI) Union Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath today said Japanese institutional investors had lined up portfolio investments of up to ten billion dollars in India over the next year.

The minister, who had accompanied Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a four-day visit to Japan, also told journalists that he expected Japanese companies to make foreign direct investments (FDI) of about two billion dollars over the same period---as much as they had invested over the last 15 years.

Mr Kamal Nath said the Japanese government and industry were working closely on their proposal for an industrial corridor along the Delhi-Mumbai multi-modal dedicated freight corridor.

He said many large Japanese companies as well as several small and medium ones were also planning to invest in India.

The minister said Japanese companies could get preferential treatment in the contracts for some of the projects that the two countries were collaborating on. Details of such treatment had to be worked out, he said.

He said both countries felt that Japan's Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) programme needed to be dovetailed into India's economic and infrastructure development programmes.

Mr Kamal Nath said there was a proposal for Indian companies to help set up an Indian Institute of Information Technology in Japan for the benefit of both countries.

He said the number of Indian software engineers working in Japan was only around 400, with the lack of skills in the Japanese language being a limiting factor.

According to him, the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) would help upgrade the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in India.

He felt states which had better ITIs would benefit more from foreign investment in the years to come, given the huge demand for skilled manpower.

''ITIs will play a pivotal role. ITI upgradation has to be at the core of our inward investment strategy,'' he said.

Mr Kamal Nath said Japan had also shown keen interest in helping modernise Indian ports.

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