PM calls for aggressive efforts to improve ties

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday called for more aggressive efforts to deepen economic ties between India and Turkey, saying the present level of commercial relations between the two countries are “not enough”.

PM Modi was speaking at an India-Turkey business summit with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is visiting New Delhi. India-Turkey trade stands at $6.4 billion, which officials say is much below potential. Ankara wants a Free Trade Agreement and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to bridge the deficit with New Delhi.

With chances of Turkey becoming a European Union member diminishing, Ankara is actively looking to Asia in terms of economic development and security and India is seen as a major partner in this regard.

“As we strive to build stronger political ties, the time has come to also make more aggressive effort to deepen the economic relations,” Modi said.

Presenting India as an economy, which is the “fastest growing” and therefore a “promising” destination for investment and doing business, the Prime Minister said the government’s focus apart from maintaining this pace, is also to remove inefficiencies from the system.

India has been wooing nations to invest more by easing the norms of doing business and promising to make the environment more conducive to trade. “Today’s knowledge-based global economy is continuously opening new areas. We must factor this in our economic and commercial interactions,” Modi said. The PM also gave the visiting dignitary an overview of the administrative reforms aimed at giving the economy a fillip.

“We have planned to build 50 million houses by 2022. For this, we have repeatedly refined our FDI policy in construction sector …We are putting up new ports and modernising the old ones through an ambitious plan called Sagarmala,” he said.

He referred to the areas of possible cooperation and said the hydrocarbon sector is a common area of interest for both countries and spoke of possible coordination in the solar and wind energy sectors.

The directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) raids at the residence of a retired army officer in Meerut on Saturday and other locations in Delhi and Gurgaon have led sleuths deeper into the network of an international syndicate of arms traffickers and poachers.

Sleuths had recovered arms, two lakh cartridges, wild animal hides, trophies and other materials from the house. The DRI officials have issued a look out notice for the retired army officer Col Devendra Kumar’s son, Prashant Vishnoi, who is a professional skeet shooter and is at large. The officials seized his passport during the raid to prevent him from escaping to another country.

Meanwhile, Col Kumar had assured the law enforcement agencies of his support. “I was not aware about my son’s activities and if he has done anything wrong, action should be initiated against him,” he said.

The raiding team also recovered 117 kg raw meat from the army officer’s residence. Chief conservator of forest (west zone) Mukesh Kumar has directed his staff to send a sample of the recovered meat to the wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun for testing.