India, Oman to set up Joint Holding Company

New Delhi, Dec 15 (UNI) India and Oman will set up a Joint Holding Company with a 100 million US dollar corpus to elevate their relationship to a higher level of strategic partnership and replicate similar success stories in other economic sectors.

This was decided during talks between visiting Omani Deputy Prime Minister Sayyid Fahd Bin Mahmoud Al Said and Indian leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

A joint statement issued after the conclusion of the four-day official visit of the Omani leader today said the 100 million dollar corpus would have contributions from the major business houses and investment institutions on both sides.

''The corpus would form the seed money for joint investment in infrastructure and other projects in both countries,'' the joint statement said, adding that India would send a delegation to Oman shortly to finalise details.

This would be bolstered by regular interactions through the bilateral institutional mechanisms including the Joint Commission, Joint Business Council and the Strategic Consultative Group.

The Joint Commission was directed to meet more regularly and identify the thrust areas and formulate a perspective plan for the next ten years.

The Omani Deputy Prime Minister who arrived here to a red-carpet welcome on December 12, was accompanied by the minister for foreign affairs, minister of commerce and industry, minister of oil and gas, minister of agriculture, minister of information and the assistant secretary General in the office of the Deputy Prime Minister as well as a team of 20 prominent business persons.

During the visit, Sayyid Fahd called on President Pratibha Patil and Vice President Hamid Ansari. He also held delegation-level talks with the Prime Minister. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, minister for overseas Indian affairs Vyalar Ravi and National Security Adviser M K Narayanan called on him.

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