India one of the powerhouses of world economy says German Minister

MUMBAI - German Minister of Economics and Technology Rainer Bruderle, presently on a two-day visit to India said that India is one of the powerhouses of the world economy.

He said while addressing a group of Industry captains and other leading personalities from the corporate world here on Friday.

“India is one of the powerhouses of the world economy and so we are very eager to improve our already very successful co-operation. I am very happy to get a lot of ideas. That’s a feeling both sides are willing to want more and do more,” said Bruderle.

He further said that his delegation to India had fruitful discussions and they are looking forward for an expansion of 20 billion Euros investment in India as per the wishes of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Had a very fruitful discussion, lot of exchange of ideas with the CEOs of very successful Indian companies working abroad, working in lot of states. We wanted to collect ideas to improve the very successful co-operation between India and Germany. It’s up to 13 billion Euro… volume per year, we want to expand it to 20. It was the ambition of your Prime Minister Singh and our Chancellor Merkel,” said Bruderle.

On liberalising norms for Visa, he said both the countries should lessen the red tape and they are willing to have an exchange of experts in their respective countries.

“Yeah for those directions, we have to make less red tape coming to Germany but coming to India too. We are both willing to speed it up and we get some ideas and take it home and leave some here to improve it. Of course we want more Indian experts to work for us in Germany and India wants more German experts over here. So the will in both the sides is very strong,” said Bruderle.

Earlier on Thursday, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, while addressing the 17th Session of Indo-German Joint Commission Meeting on Industrial and Economic Cooperation at New Delhi, had said that India and Germany hold tremendous potential for cooperation between them in various sectors including bio-technology, infrastructure development, telecom and health care among others. By Sushil Pareek (ANI)