India, Germany celebrate 50 years of bilateral cooperation

New Delhi, Oct 19 (UNI) Commemorating 50 years of Indo-German bilateral development cooperation, the Governments of India and Germany will be jointly organising a ceremony here tomorrow.

A strategy paper on the Indo-German bilateral cooperation, which will delineate the framework of bilateral development cooperation, will be released on the occasion.

The Indo-German development cooperation, which started in 1958 with Rourkela steel plant, has now completed 50 years. Since then, the cooperation has diversified into longstanding and fruitful partnership in important sectors, such as health, infrastructure development, rural development, poverty alleviation, economic reforms, consumer protection, environmental protection and SME development.

The two countries are extending cooperation through educational, cultural and parliamentary exchanges, cooperation in science&technology, research and development and now in defence, an official statement said today.

Germany, the seventh largest foreign investor in India with cumulative FDI of 2.26 billion dollars, is also the largest trading partner of India in Europe.

The bilateral trade target of 10 billion euros by 2009, set by the two countries in October 2004, has already been achieved in 2006.

The total volume of bilateral, technical and financial cooperation since 1958 amounts to 8,428 billion euros.

UNI SG PD RK1820