The Railway Minister offered Arab countries help in laying rail tracks while the Finance Minister called for stronger economic partnerships.
NEW DELHI: Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Monday offered Arab countries India's help in laying rail tracks while Finance Minister P. Chidambaram called for strengthening economic partnership between the two sides.
"There is a possibility of cooperation in the construction of railways in Arab countries," Lalu Prasad told business leaders, diplomats and mediapersons on Monday at an international conference on promoting India-Arab economic relations.
"In the era of globalisation, India and Arab countries can better relations and development by way of economic, technical and business cooperation," he said.
"Many Indians, especially from Bihar, work in the Arab countries through which our culture and civilisation are known to each other," said the minister.
The two-day conference, being attended by ministers, diplomats, academics, businessmen and opinion leaders from India and Arab countries, has been organised by the Indo-Arab Economic Cooperation Forum and the Institute of Objective Studies.
Mazen M. Batterjee of the Saudi-based Batterjee group, specialising in trade and medical services, outlined a vision of economic partnership between India and the Arab world and called for intensification of two-way investments.
He said the visit of the Saudi monarch King Abdullah early this year - the first by a Saudi king in 51 years - "opened a new chapter in India's relationship with the Arab world."
India has shown interest in the train link planned between the holy cities of Makkah and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
IRCON, the consulting arm of Indian Railways, has bid for tenders for development of rail-related infrastructure in West Asia.
India is keen to participate in a pan-Arab rail service that will link a dozen Arab countries, including Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
Chidambaram underlined New Delhi's solidarity with the Arab world, home to over four million strong Indian diaspora, and called for converting centuries-old cultural ties into an economic partnership.
He urged the oil-rich Arab countries to step up investment in India, especially in the infrastructure sector.
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