The Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has said that his meeting with his French counterpart, Ms Christine Lagarde, were quite satisfactory and India would focus on expanding ties with France.

The Finance Minister is in France to attend the summit of Finance Ministers and central bank heads of G-20 countries. “We are expanding our relationship and in that context, my meeting with the French Finance Minister was quite satisfactory. We had the opportunity of sharing many of our issues of concern between our two countries,” Mr Mukherjee told presspersons after meeting Ms Lagarde on Friday.

In his brief meeting with Ms Christine Lagarde, Mr Mukherjee discussed numerous issues including nuclear co-operation.

“During the visit of French President last year, we had important agreements signed between different organisations of France and India, important organisation is nuclear cooperation. France is also emerging as an important supplier of our defence equipment and platforms. France is the 9th largest direct foreign investor in India and the 5th largest trading partners in Europe,” added Mr Mukherjee. Ministers and Governors of central banks from various countries such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, the United States and the European Union have been attending the ongoing G-20 conference.

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