Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and German Chancellor Angela Merkel speak with students of an Indian school, at the Chancellery in Berlin, yesterday.
BERLIN: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday said they had made progress on breaking an impasse in free trade talks between India and Europe that have stumbled on access to India’s car and insurance markets.
“The situation is that such a deal appears to be reachable,” Merkel told a news conference with Singh in Berlin after talks that included members of both of their cabinets.
“We haven’t yet overcome the problems but I want to thank India for its high degree of flexibility on certain issues, on which we have got further today than for many years,” she said. Merkel went on to describe the negotiations as “dynamic”.
Talks between the EU and Asia’s third largest economy have been dragging on for years. Reducing Indian car import tariffs and caps on foreign investment in insurance are both of major interest to Germany, India’s biggest trading partner in Europe.
“There are some problems with the level of tariff protection we give to India’s automobile sector,” said Singh, adding that trade ministers meeting in Brussels later this week should be able to show further progress.
India and Germany yesterday signed six agreements to enhance cooperation in the areas of green energy, education, agriculture and science and technology.
The agreements were signed after the second inter-governmental meeting between the two countries.
The Indian prime minister and the German chancellor co-chaired the meeting and discussed the areas of cooperation.
Addressing a joint press conference after the meeting, Singh said high-level bilateral engagement between the two countries in recent years had substantially and tangibly raised the quality of cooperation across a broad range of areas.
India’s Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Farooq Abdullah, and German parliamentary state secretary Gudrun Kopp signed an agreement for establishment of a “green energy corridor”.
Two agreements were signed to enhance cooperation in education and research.
Joint declarations of intents were signed for cooperation in agriculture, food security and civil security research.
AGENCIES
