19 October :The Governments of India and Germany will jointly organize a ceremony to commemorate 50 years of Indo-German Bilateral Development Cooperation tomorrow. The German Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development is participating in this event.
The Indo-German Development Co-operation, which started in 1958 with Rourkela steel plant, has now completed 50 years. Since 1958, the cooperation has diversified into longstanding and fruitful partnership in important sectors, such as health, infrastructure development, rural development, poverty alleviation, economic reforms, consumer protection, environmental protection, SME development, etc.
The Bilateral partnership graduated to the level of "strategic partnership" since 2001. The two countries are extending co-operation through educational, cultural and parliamentary exchanges, co-operation in science & technology, research and development and now in defence. Germany is the 7th largest foreign investor in India with cumulative FDI of US$ 2.26 billion. Germany is also the largest trading partner of India in Europe. The bilateral trade target of Euro 10 billion by 2009, set by the two leaders during the visit of Chancellor Schroeder to India in October 2004 has already been achieved in 2006.
With continuous dialogue, both sides have agreed on a number of measures for improving the quality of development assistance to India. As a result, the Indo-German Development Co-operation is well aligned with our development priorities entailed in the Five Year Plans and provides a sector-wise approach to the agreed priority sector interventions in the sectors of Economic reforms, energy and environmental protection. Germany is the 7th largest foreign investor in India with cumulative FDI inflows of US$ 2.26 billion. The total volume of bilateral Technical and Financial Cooperation since cooperation began in 1958 amounts to Euro 8,428 billion.
A Strategy Paper on the Indo-German Bilateral Cooperation is being released by the two Ministers on this occasion. The Strategy Paper will delineate the framework of bilateral development cooperation.