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France targets India as key destination for trade, investment

FRENCH CONNECTION: The Minister for Foreign Trade of France, Ms Christine Lagarde, flanked by the Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr Kamal Nath, and the FICCI President, Mr S. K. Poddar, at the Indo-French Business Summit in the Capital on Monday. - Kamal Narang

New Delhi , Dec 4

The Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, has said that he would take up the matter of short-term non-immigration visas with his French counterpart during bilateral talks.

Ms Christine Lagarde, Foreign Trade Minister of France, is currently leading a 200-member multi-sectoral delegation of SMEs to India.

"We are having some issues on visas. The IT sector is not looking at immigration, but they want two- and three-week visas. Both in the WTO negotiations with the EU, where we are discussing it multilaterally and in bilateral talks with France, the short-term non-immigration visa is a matter of discussion," said Mr Kamal Nath after attending an Indo-French Business Meet today.

He highlighted that Indian IT companies have started training their employees in French. He also saw lot of scope for engineering and knowledge process outsourcing from India.

The Indian IT services sector had recently made a case for a more liberal regime for short-term visas, stating that developed countries are sometimes mixing up immigration and service delivery issues and are reluctant to give short-term visas.

On her part, Ms Lagarde had, during informal talks with Mr Kamal Nath, already raised the issue of high taxes on French wines imported into India.

She added that this issue could be resolved through dialogue.

Mr Kamal Nath, however, pointed out that the European Union (EU) has initiated proceedings against India on the wines and spirits issue at the dispute settlement body of the WTO.

"I am hopeful that by dialogue we will resolve this and it need not reach the next stage," he said.

Meanwhile, Ms Lagarde said that France has targeted India as one of the five key destinations for trade and investments. "We need to weave the economic texture between the two countries at the SME level."

Mr Kamal Nath said that SMEs need much more facilitation from the Governments. "Large companies always have the infrastructure and reach. They don't need any facilitation. Big companies will arrive in any case."

The Commerce Minister also invited investment in the food processing sector, stating that there were ample opportunities for growth in it.

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Kamal Nath promises to raise visa issues with France

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