The Hindu : Korea asked to invest in infrastructure projects

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 11, 2003

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Korea asked to invest in infrastructure projects

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI DEC. 10. India is aware of the problems foreign investors are facing and to mitigate those problems, the Government is committed to create world-class infrastructure, which would require an investment of $347 billion.

This was stated here today by India's Foreign Secretary, Shashank, while delivering the inaugural address at the India-Korea Economic Summit, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Mr. Shashank invited the Korean business fraternity to avail themselves of the opportunity and invest in India's infrastructure upgradation, which he said was already taking place. He referred to the Prime Minister's dream project `the Golden Quadrilateral' and said that there was a conceptual design to link all the major rivers across the country to prevent drought.

The Foreign Secretary said that South Korea was looking for an alternative mass production site and India should assiduously woo it here rather than refrain from cheap mass manufacturing. Some steps have been taken like the investments of Korean firms in consumer durables and automotives. India and Korea should collaborate in manufacturing and exporting to even third party destinations where the technology intensive part is performed in Korea while the labour intensive bit is done here, he added.

Mr. Shashank said that there were sectoral opportunities for cooperation ands signalled out IT as a key area. He said cooperation in the field of IT was emerging as an important sector in India-Korea bilateral economic relations. Software and electronic exports to Korea had increased from $4.7 million in 1998-99 to $13.44 million in 2000-01, he added. He said that there were several complementary advantages between India and Korea. Korean infrastructure was ready for deployment of applications that demand high bandwidth and India was strong in the development of applications and was seen as a good R & D base, he said.

Later in his keynote address, Kwon Soon-Tae, Ambassador of Korea, said, "In tandem with its advanced IT sector, India should develop and modernise the manufacturing sector with an infusion of large amounts of investment".

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