Bahrain's premier urged Indian businessmen Wednesday to use the Gulf state as a regional business base and to invest in the country's information technology, tourism and other sectors.
"We want Indian investors and businessmen to come to Bahrain," Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa told a business audience, adding relations between the two countries dated back centuries.
The prime minister was leading a top-level delegation that included Commerce Minister Ali Saleh Al Saleh on a four-day trip due to wind up Wednesday.
The commerce minister said some 300 Indian companies had already set up base in the tiny island kingdom. Indians make up the largest expatriate community in Bahrain.
"We shouldn't restrict ourselves to opportunities in Bahrain but look at the entire region as a market... that can be accessed by India," Saleh told the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
Bilateral trade between Bahrain and India totalled 135.55 million dollars in 2002, up from 95 million dollars in 2001, recent figures show.
Bahrain's strategic location and investor-friendly banking and legal system could help make the country a springboard for Indian entrepreneurs seeking to make inroads in the region, the kingdom's officials said.
Laws introduced two years ago, including protection of intellectual property rights, were aimed at increasing investor confidence, they added.
Information technology, telecommunications, healthcare, education, tourism and business services were priority investment areas, Saleh said.
FICCI senior vice-president Onkar Kanwar said his organisation would work out a business plan for information and communications technology, healthcare and bio-technology and promotion of small- and medium-sized enterprises.
"Bahrain could serve as a hub for world class healthcare services and Indian companies in this line of business could evolve partnerships in Bahrain."
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