Sumitra Mahajan meets EU Parliament president Martin Schulz

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan met President of European Parliament Martin Schulz at Brussels during her visit there, during which they discussed several issues of mutual interest, including the possibility of an EU-India free trade agreement.

Underscoring the strategic partnership between India and the EU, she said further progress can be achieved on the 'India-EU broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement'.

"It needs to be a win-win one for both sides," the Speaker said.

According to a government statement, she invited active EU participation in India's development initiatives.

EU is India's largest regional trading partner and India was EU's ninth largest trading partner in 2014.

The two leaders felt that in the increasingly inter-reliant world, there was an urgent need for enhanced parliamentary initiative at global level to intensify foreign and trading relations among various nations.

Mahajan noted that while bilateral engagement between the two sides is consolidating under their visionary leaderships, there was an urgent need to make this process more sustainable and mutually beneficial.

In this regard, she referred to several important initiatives being taken in India to ensure ease of business and credibility of regulatory mechanisms. She hoped that these initiatives would offer valuable opportunities to foreign companies to invest in India.