Pranab to travel to Santa Claus village during visit to Finland

Santa Claus will get a chance to meet President Pranab Mukherjee in his village in Finland.

Briefing newspersons on the President’s forthcoming visit to Norway and Finland, Navtej Sarna, Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, said Mukherjee will visit the Santa Claus village. “This is an actual village where Santa Claus lives. There is a Santa Claus post office and there is a Santa Claus house,” he added.

The President leaves for Norway on October 12 and will be in Finland from October 14 to October 16.

The visit to Norway which is the first by an Indian Head of State will see India signing several agreements covering education, trade and earth sciences apart from agreements between various educational institutions.

A 45-member business delegation will also be in Norway during the President’s visit and several of them will also travel to Finland, the Secretary said. The President had an extensive discussion with many of the businessmen and industrialists on Friday.

Sarna said that bilateral trade between India and Norway stands at about $1 billion but the potential was much higher given Norway’s rich natural resource base. There is particular interest in deep sea fishing. There is huge potential to attract investment from Norway to India both in infrastructure and other sectors, he added.

Norway runs the largest pension fund which is valued at about $850 billion of which about $4 billion is being invested in India currently and there is a commitment to raise it to $40 billion.

“We want to see how we can push it further and in which sectors,” Sarna said.