12-09-2006, 05:57 AM
<b>Indian remittances from Gulf reach USD 20 Billion</b>
<b>DUBAI : Some six million Indian expatriates in the six oil-rich Gulf Arab states will send home this year around $20 billion in remittances, a United Arab Emirates official said in remarks published on Friday.</b>
Economy Minister Sheikha Lubna al-Qassemi was speaking at a meeting of Arab and Indian businessmen in Dubai attended by Indiaâs minister of commerce and industry, Kamal Nath, the daily Emirates Today reported.
It quoted Nath as saying Indiansâ remittances from the UAE alone would reach six billion dollars this year, and that India could easily get an additional two billion dollars in investment from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.
India needs as much as 150 billion dollars in foreign direct investment in the next seven to eight years, while the UAE and other Gulf states are looking at lucrative places to invest in, Qassemi told the gathering.
India, which gets most of its oil from the Gulf, is negotiating a free trade agreement with GCC members Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
GCC Secretary General Abdulrahman al-Attiyah said in March that a free trade pact would boost the volume of trade between the two sides from an estimated 12.8 billion dollars in 2005 to 15 billion dollars in coming years.
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