Indo-Italian trade to focus on textile, gems & jewellery

07 Nov '06

3 min read

The 17th Session of the India-Italy Joint Commission for Economic Cooperation, which met in Rome yesterday, 6th November, 2006 under the co-chairmanship of Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, and his counterpart, Ms Emma Bonino, the Italian Minister of International Trade, has decided to step up efforts to boost bilateral trade and investment.

Both sides have agreed to focus efforts at building stronger commercial links in the textiles, garments, leather goods, auto components, gems & jewellery sectors, combining Italian strengths in design and technology with India's manufacturing competencies and human resource skills.

India and Italy have decided to set up a Joint Working Group (JWG) on Infrastructure which would provided necessary structure for enhanced cooperation and building business ties in this sector. The idea is to spur Italian investments that would also bring Italian technology for India's infrastructure. The first meeting of the JWG will be held in New Delhi in January 2007.

The other major outcomes of Joint Commission includes:

I. Increased importance to small & medium enterprise (SME) linkages, which would enlarge the scope of the business-to-business engagement between the two countries and widen and deepen the trade basket.

II. The Italian government has decided to designate India as the Focus Country for the year 2007. Tourism will foster people to people contact as well as cultural and business exchange. This is a timely initiative that will only add to the exciting phase that the Indo-Italian relationship is entering.

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