Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that India was never a more promising investment destination than it is today. Speaking at the India-Turkey Business Forum, Modi invited Turkish companies to invest in sectors like rail,
ports, airport, textile, auto, energy, tourism and housing.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, along with several business leaders, was present at the forum. “Turkish businessmen should take advantage of India’s low-cost manufacturing capabilities. India-Turkey bilateral trade has gone up to USD 6.4 billion in 2016 from USD 2.8 billion in 2008,” Modi said.
Erdogan is on his first state visit to India since 2008. Observing that India and Turkey, which are among the top 20 economies of the world with strong fundamentals, can substantially increase bilateral cooperation in several areas, the Prime Minister said, “The time has come to make aggressive effort to deepen relationship and enhance bilateral engagement.”
Promising a business friendly environment, Modi said the Turkish construction companies can participate in India’s infrastructure sector development, especially in sectors like ports, rail, housing, energy, hydrocarbon, tourism, textiles and auto.
Modi also highlighted India’s low-cost manufacturing capabilities before the Turkish businessmen while seeking investment.
Turkish President Erdogan also made a strong case for deepening and strengthening bilateral ties to achieve the actual trade potential between the two nations. He also suggested that India and Turkey should initiate free-trade agreement talks and look for possibility of bilateral trade in domestic currencies to tide over the issue of exchange rate fluctuation.
“We should increase our business and economic relationship…if we can also start the comprehensive economic relations negotiation that would be great…It would be also good to start free-trade agreement talks. This would also add further momentum to our relations,” he said. Erdogan, however, underlined the need for balancing the trade saying it was highly in favour of India.
