India should speed up economic reforms: E.U. envoy
Monday, 11 November 2002, 20:30 IST
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KOLKATA: India should accelerate the pace of its economic reforms to compete with other developing markets, European Union (E.U.) Ambassador Michel Caillouet has said. India had still to remove some obstacles to a smoother E.U.-India trade, such as cutting high import duties in certain sectors, said Caillouet who was here for a weekend consular golf tournament. "For instance E.U. countries find it difficult to access the Indian textile market because of high import duties," he told reporters, adding this was proving beneficial to Pakistan which had easier import criteria. "New Delhi must ease market access rules for higher trade with the E.U. countries," Caillouet said. The annual trade between India and E.U. nations stands at 25 billion euro. Citing examples of Singapore, Thailand and Chile, he said these nations had been able to do substantial business with E.U. countries because they had successfully changed their "brand image" and "India could expand its business cooperation with the E.U. if it altered perceptions in certain sectors". Caillouet, chief of the European Commission (E.C.) delegation to India, Nepal and Bhutan said the 15 E.U. nations had decided to expand ties with India, the world's largest democracy, and had set a target of 35 billion euro in annual trade by 2005. For this purpose the E.U. was aiming to promote "business to business cooperation" through Indian industry bodies like the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The E.U. has earmarked a corpus of one billion euro to sponsor health, primary education and civic amenity projects across India. "The E.U. awaits concrete proposals from Indian authorities in these areas," Caillouet said. The plans for promotion of education included a 40 million euro project between Indian and European universities. Caillouet met West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and spoke about the "potential areas of cooperation with the state". IT and health appear to have emerged the two favored sectors. West Bengal already receives funds from the E.U. for a health project.
Source: IANS
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