Posco green nod will enthuse our firms to invest in India: Korea

NEW DELHI: The government's environment clearance to the Rs 52,000 crore Posco steel project will inspire other big companies to invest in the country, Korea said on Friday.

"When the Posco project in Orissa kicks off on full scale, it would inspire other large conglomerates in Korea to channelise investible funds into India," South Korean President Park Geun-hye said.

Addressing Indian industry bodies here, she called for liberalising visa regime and improving business cooperation among small and medium enterprises to create more jobs in India as well as South Korea.

Referring to the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, signed in 2009 and operationalised in 2010, she said there is a need to negotiate it with authenticity to help businesses from the two sides to reap the benefits of CEPA.

"Since the operationalisation of CEPA, trade in volume terms has risen 70 per cent but the agreement leaves much to be desired. Its content does not match with that of other FTAs," Geun-hye said.

There is enough potential to raise the level of trade and investment to much higher levels through optimum utilisation of the CEPA and liberalisation of the visa regime for greater people-to-people contacts, he added.

The Commerce Ministry earlier this week commissioned a study to assess the impact of free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, with which India had a trade deficit of about $9 billion in 2012-13.

Commerce & Industry Minister Anand Sharma urged South Korean businesses to invest in India, and take advantage of the liberalised foreign direct investment ( FDI) policy.

"We have put in place single window approval mechanisms and Korean industries should look at investing in the upcoming industrial townships. Koreans should come in chip manufacturing. We have liberalised FDI regime in civil aviation, telecom. Korean businesses can benefit from the new policy regime," Sharma said.