Copenhagen: India and the European Union have set an ambitious target of 35 billion Euro bilateral trade by 2005 which would be stepped up to 50 billion Euro by 2008, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has said.

Speaking at the opening dinner on October 9, Sinha said it was important that both sides work on new and emerging sectors Information Technology, bio-technology and other sectors of the knowledge economy to achieve this target.

The Summit is being jointly orgainsed by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) along with Confederation of Danish Industries.

He wanted European business community to have a long-term view and look at "matters of the moment" on trade issues.

"India faces a lot of anti-dumping duties on products of interest to it like textiles," he said, adding the two sides should work together to resolve these issues.

Highlighting the recent trend of Indian investments in other countries, Sinha said, "Given our comfortable position of $ 62 billion of foreign exchange, Indian companies can invest in countries of the North."

Referring to the large base of human capital available in India, he said that EU could look to India to provide manpower and support in areas such as health services.

PTI