The Minister of State of Commerce, Shri Jairam Ramesh will be visiting Maldives from January 29th to 31st as part of his drive to expand trade and investment ties within SAARC. He has already visited Bangladesh and is scheduled to be in Sri Lanka in two weeks time. Interactions with delegations from Pakistani and Bhutan have also taken place. In addition, Shri Ramesh has visited all the important border trade centres in the region including Petrapole, Moreh and Attari/Wagah. The visit assumes significance in light of the forthcoming SAFTA Ministerial meeting in New Delhi on March 1st-2nd, 2008.
Shri Ramesh will also review the working of the Indo-Maldives Trade Agreement of 1981 in light of the changes that have taken place in the economies of both countries. India supplies essential commodities like rice, wheat flour, eggs, potatoes, stones and sand as part of this Agreement. Even though wheat exports from India are banned, as a measure of the importance it attaches to SAARC in general and Maldives in particular, India supplies wheat flour to Maldives.
India accounts for around 10-11% of Maldives imports, next to Singapore and Sri Lanka and is on par with UAE. Exports from India to Maldives are presently in the region of about $ 100 million. Singapore accounts for almost 90% of the FDI into Maldives, followed by Malaysia. Shri Jairam Ramesh’s visit is to explore how India can expand its trade and investment presence in Maldives, a country of great strategic significance to it.
Fisheries is one important area for bilateral cooperation that is proposed to be discussed during Shri Ramesh’s visit. Cooperation in tuna is one specific area that will be discussed now that India has also announced major plans to develop its tuna resources, particularly in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. n addition, Maldives has sought India’s assistance to develop it as a trans-shipment and logistics hub because of its strategic location. Maldives has also expressed in expanding the scope of training in IT.
Source: pib.nic.in
No comments:
Post a Comment