Shri Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, Union Minister of State for Commerce & Industry, led the 17th Joint Economic Committee (JEC) at Bucharest in Romania and signed the protocol with his counterpart Minister. During the meeting Minister Scindia urged Indian industry to use the opportunities presenting themselves in Europe for investments and cutting-edge technology ventures. Minister M. Jyotiraditya Scindia stated that, India is confident that it will anchor global economic recoveries in the coming years. Romania is actively looking at diversifying its economy and Indian corporates can play a significant role as enablers in this process. A business delegation with diverse interests like oil and natural gas, power equipment, IT, alternative energy, textiles, pharmaceuticals, supply chain management, tourism, electric buses accompanied the Indian Minister.
In a bilateral meeting with his counterpart Mr. Ion Ariton, the Romanian Minister for Economy, Trade and Business Environment Minister Scindia expressed hope to double bilateral trade and economic cooperation in the next three years by 2015. The JEC which met after a hiatus of 8 years resolved to promote investments and JVs in areas of supply of equipment for metallurgy and energy industry, cooperation between Micro small and medium enterprises, Transport and infrastructure field, IT and ITES, cooperation in technical textiles, and Tourism.
Joint working groups in the Hydrocarbon and SME sectors were held on the sidelines of the JEC. In the hydrocarbon sector both sides agreed to encourage cooperation in upstream and downstream hydrocarbon sector including in training, capacity building and research & development, supply of equipment for exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbon and other technical assistance. India offered its expertise in the service sector and expressed interest in Joint exploration with Romanian National Company Petrom. In the SME working group both sides agreed on information sharing, facilitating institutional cooperation; business and trade delegations to explore Joint Ventures, technology transfer and investment opportunities.
Even in the midst of the EU crisis, during the current fiscal 2011-12, bilateral trade between India and Romania has grown by 6%. Shri Scindia urged Romanian companies to continue the trend of supplying competitively priced inputs to Indian industry and invited them to participate in the ˜India Show™ in the Brno Engineering Fair in the Czech Republic in October 2012, where over 150 Indian Engineering companies will participate.
