European Union Hopeful of Higher FDI in India .

Mumbai: The European Union, India's leading partner in terms of trade and investment, is hopeful of higher foreign direct investment in India in the coming years.

"Europe is India's largest source of foreign direct investment with a stock of 34.4 billion euros and India's investments in Europe is also fast reaching 7 billion euros. There is scope to grow much more.

"European FDI in India for instance is half the amount of that in China, or a quarter of that in Russia, or a fifth of that in Brazil," European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said at a conference 'EU-India: A strategic relationship in an evolving world' organised by FICCI.

EU investment in India is bigger than that of the US and Japan combined, Barroso said.

The European Union is India's first partner in terms of trade and investment - in 2010 the European Union imported over 40 billion Euros worth of goods and services from India.

Overall bilateral trade amounted to 87.3 bn Euros. The first ten months of 2011 showed continued growth in EU trade with India. Exports and imports both grew by 20 per cent between the first ten months of 2010 and the same period of 2011, with exports amounting to 33.4 bn and imports to 33.3 bn.

Europe is also one of India's major partners in the field of economic and development cooperation, particularly in the areas of education and social actions, Barroso said.

"The recent evolution of the trade figures between us is impressive, but there is potential to have much larger flow of goods and investment. In times of global uncertainty, creating such economic anchors is of paramount importance," he said.

"We need to remain committed to unlocking all the potential of the relationship. This would also be entirely consistent with the Indian government's agenda of reform and opening up the economy. We need to move ahead with our trade negotiations in order to achieve a balanced and ambitious trade agreement, encompassing tariffs, services and procurement," Barroso said.

Barroso pointed out that both EU and India should work together to achieve goals of energy efficiency and renewable energies.

India has one of the highest potentials for the effective use of renewable energy and it is already the fifth largest producer of wind power; Europe has a large know-how in the green economy and we are developing a low-carbon economic strategy, he said.

We made good progress with negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement, and the perimeter of a final agreement is emerging, he added.

Barroso is confident that EU and India can finalise the negotiations in the months to come. The prospect of concluding the single biggest free trade agreement in the world, between a total of 1.7 billion people, is a once in a lifetime opportunity that we have to seize with both hands, he said.

Europe has been doing a lot to address its sovereign debt problems, Barroso said, adding that while we continue with fiscal consolidation we need to focus all our attention on rapid and concrete actions to get our economy growing again.

Source : ibnlive.in.com