India, Finland sign pact on economic cooperation.

India and Finland have signed an agreement on economic cooperation that will replace an earlier pact signed way back in 1967 under the GATT regime.

The agreement was signed by Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma and Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Vayrnen in Helsinki on Friday.

Mr Sharma said the new agreement would raise the level of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries to a new and higher level.

He said the world had moved far ahead from the the 1960s and both countries offered vast areas of opportunity which could be tapped, keeping in view the complementarities of their various sectors.

Mr Sharma said the highly organised high-end technology sectors of Finland could develop synergy with the highly skilled and educated work force of India.

An official press release said the agreement sought to deepen the engagement between the two countries through exchanges of investors, information and experts and also by developing opportunities for the two countries by exploring joint economic possibilities in third countries.

A Joint Commission consisting of experts will be set up under the agreement to identify new business possibilities and also to identify and remove hurdles which could hamper mutual economic cooperation between the two countries. The two sides also decided to set up three Joint Working Groups in the areas of Innovation, Clean Technology and waste management and Skill Development and Training.

Mr Sharma was accompanied on the trip by a business delegation led by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) President Rajan Bharti Mittal.

On March 25, the two Ministers chaired a business roundtable at which business leaders from both sides expressed keenness to collaborate.

Mr Sharma said areas such as infrastructure, clean energy, bio-pharmaceuticals, medical electronics, health and skill development offered enormous potential and stated that Indian micro, small and medium enterprises and the Finnish small industries should each other's stregnths to make India a manufacturing hub for high-tech industries.

He invited the Finnish industry to invest in institutes of excellence and skill imparting centres in India.

During the two-day visit, Mr Sharma also held bilateral talks with Finnish Minister of Economic Affairs and Employment Mauri Pekkarinen and Dr Vayrnen on areas of strategic and economic importance for the two countries.

Source : netindian.in