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Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, today invited Italian enterprises to invest more in India, while pointing out that the actual inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) from Italy at US $ 448 million is only 1.83% of the total FDI inflow into India from all countries. The Minister had an exchange of views on bilateral and multilateral trade matters with Mr. Antonio Marzano, Italian Minister for Production Activities, when the latter along with a delegation called on him here this evening.
Emphasising the untapped potential for further expanding and diversifying bilateral trade, both the Ministers expressed happiness over the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on fishery and aquaculture products between Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India and the Italian Ministry of Health in the presence of the Prime Minister of India and the President of Italy earlier today. They also recalled the meeting last month of the Indo-Italian bilateral Joint Commission for Economic Cooperation which was co-chaired by Shri Kamal Nath and Mr. Antonio Marzano and underlined the need to follow up on the Joint Commission deliberations which had identified areas of bilateral cooperation in several areas including trade, small & medium enterprises, agriculture, information technology & scientific research, tourism, energy, infrastructure, aviation & related technology and intellectual property rights in industry.
Shri Kamal Nath is scheduled to address the participants of “India & Italy Business Forum” being organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), jointly with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Confindustria and ICE (Italian Institute of Foreign Trade) at Pragati Maidan tomorrow. He will also deliver a keynote address at the design road show being organised by Embassy of Italy in cooperation with National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, at India Habitat Centre on 16th February, 2005.
Mr. Antonio Marzano is accompanying the President of Italy on his state visit to India during February 13-17, 2005. The President of Italy is also accompanied by a CEO’s delegation consisting of 31 members led by Mr. Luca di Montezemolo, President, Confindustria (Confederation of Italian industries) and a delegation from 113 Italian Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
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