India-Korea trade target of 30 billion dollars to be achieved by 2014: Anand Sharma

NEW DELHI - Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma on Thursday said the trade target of 30 billion dollars between India and the Republic of Korea would be achieved by 2014.

“I am confident that as exporters on both sides develop a better understanding of the advantages presented by this agreement through a liberal tariff regime, we should easily be in a position to achieve the trade target of 30 billion dollars by 2014,” said Sharma, while speaking at the India-Korea Business forum along with Kim Jong-Hoon, Minister for Trade, Republic of Korea here.

“The services economy will, particularly benefit from a liberalized regime on both sides and will form an important building block for augmenting the bilateral trade between our two countries. We view the agreement with the Republic of Korea to serve as an economic bridge between South Asia and the larger East Asian economy, paving the way for a larger regional economic integration across the continent of Asia,” he added.

Sharma said that the signing of Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Republic of Korea in August 2009 underscored our strong commitment to deepening trade and investment linkages between our two countries.

He further stated that it has now been a year since the agreement has come into force and in 2010 the bilateral trade between our two countries stood at nearly 15 billion dollars, witnessing a growth of nearly 44 percent over the previous year.

Sharma said that in the next decade, India is set to absorb investment of over 1.7 trillion dollars in infrastructure alone.

He informed that the Korean Steel Major POSCO Project in Orissa will not only produce 12 million tonnes of steel, bringing in an investment of over 12 billion dollars, but would also create nearly 50,000 direct and indirect jobs.

“It will also have considerable spin off for large scale mineral development, infrastructure development through captive port, road hubs, downstream activities in automobile and construction,” he added.

During the interaction, Sharma mentioned that over the last three years, India has received FDI in excess of 100 billion dollars and we expect that in the next five years we should be receiving Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) equity inflows in excess of 250 billion dollars.

“I would like to particularly mention that Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project represents a whole range of opportunity for establishing new urban townships, investment regions, logistic hubs in an economically vibrant part of India. We welcome Korean business community to join hands with us in our endeavour to develop this Corridor,” said Sharma.

“We are in the process of establishing large investment regions - National Manufacturing Investment Zones to attract investments in the entire gamut of manufacturing industry. We invite Korean investments in these investment regions for the development of these regions and also for establishment of manufacturing bases,” he added.

While concluding his address at the forum, Sharma noted that Asia decisively will have a pivotal role to play in the emerging order and there is no doubt in my mind that partnership between India and Korea will be one of the defining themes of this trend.

“Our relationship with South Korea forms the corner stone of India’s ‘Look East policy’, which has defined our engagement with the larger East Asian region,” he added.

Senior officials from both the nations and representatives from trade and apex chambers were present at the India-Korea Business forum. (ANI)