Posted on Wednesday, 27th January 2010 by Admin
The economic downturn has made India a more attractive destination than ever before.
This is evident from the sharp increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows over the past year.
But the latest interest is coming from an unexpected country. Well, South Korea is betting big on the India growth story.
Indians have been using Samsung products for sometime now, but the trade relation between the two countries is all set to get warmer.
India and Korea plan to double bilateral trade to over $30 billion by 2014.
Seok Cho, deputy minister of Korean Knowledge Centre, said, “The potential of the Indian economy is very high and the new field of industries such as biotechnology and robot systems are emerging.”
NDTV learnt that FDI from Korea will increase substantially in 2010 and 150 Korean companies are going to set up shop in India.
Massive investments are lined up in the infrastructure and mechanical sectors.
Korean companies are particularly interested in investing in the roads and highways space.
Also, Korea is looking at exporting information and communications technology and machine hardware.
In return, the country is eager to tap the pool of skilled IT professionals from India.
Som Mittal, president of Nasscom, said, “There are two things that we are discussing. One is that India being a good market for Korean companies, and two, to leverage the talent that we have here.”
In fact, six memorandums of understanding (MoUs) were signed between Indian and Korean officials on Monday and the areas of cooperation range from banking to textiles.
Last year, investments from Korea increased by 39 per cent to over $15 billion dollars.
India and South Korea are also discussing a possible nuclear pact and India has given duty benefits to certain Korean products with effect from this year, as an earlier agreement kicked in.
There have been a string of deals signed between Indian and Chinese companies recently.
In fact on Monday, DHIC, South Korea’s largest power generator signed a billion-dollar deal with India’s Gmr Energy to build a coal-fired power plant.
India’s assurance to Korea to remove obstacles facing POSCO’s $12 billion investment in India will provide relief to the Koreans.
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