JEC: India Signs Economic Committee Protocol in Bucharest

Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry M. Jyotiraditya Scindia led the 17th Joint Economic Committee (JEC) at Bucharest in Romania and signed the Economic Committee Protocol with his Romanian counterpart on Thursday.

In a bilateral meeting with his counterpart Ion Ariton, the Romanian Minister for Economy, Trade and Business Environment Minister, Scindia expressed hope to double bilateral trade and economic cooperation in the next three years by 2015.

Urging Indian industries to use the opportunities presenting themselves in Europe for investments and cutting-edge technology ventures, Scindia stated that India is confident that it will anchor global economic recoveries in the coming years.

"Romania is actively looking at diversifying its economy and Indian corporates can play a significant role as enablers in this process. A business delegation with diverse interests like oil and natural gas, power equipment, IT, alternative energy, textiles, pharmaceuticals, supply chain management, tourism, electric buses accompanied the Indian Minister" said the Minister in a statement.

The JEC which met after a hiatus of eight years resolved to promote investments and joint ventures in areas of supply of equipment for metallurgy and energy industry, cooperation between micro, small and medium enterprises, transport and infrastructure field, IT and ITES, cooperation in technical textiles and tourism.

The statement also mentioned that meetings were held for joint working groups in the hydrocarbon and small- and medium-size enterprises on the sidelines of the JEC.

In the hydrocarbon sector, both sides agreed to encourage cooperation in upstream and downstream hydrocarbon sector including in training, capacity building and research and development, supply of equipment for exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbon and other technical assistance.

India offered its expertise in the service sector and expressed interest in joint exploration with Romanian National Company, Petrom.

In the SME working group, both sides agreed on information sharing, facilitating institutional cooperation, business and trade delegations to explore Joint Ventures, technology transfer and investment opportunities.

Pointing out the 6 percent growth of Indo-Romania bilateral trade even in the midst of the EU crisis during the current fiscal 2011-12, Scindia urged Romanian companies to continue the trend of supplying competitively priced inputs to the Indian industry and invited them to participate in the "India Show" in the International Engineering Fair.

Around 150 Indian Engineering companies will participate in the "India Show" at the International Engineering Fair in Brno, Czech Republic, in October.