Munich: Giving a significant economic thrust to his two-day official visit to Germany, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on May 29 asked German investors to take a slice of the big Indian market by investing in the ongoing highway project, ports and the proposed scheme of countrywide linking of rivers.

Addressing a business summit in Munich, the hub of German industry, he also had a word of caution that economic reforms in India cannot be pushed as a "shock therapy", but only through the "tonic of compromise and consensus", which supports a more equitable growth.

In his keynote address to a gathering of representatives of some of the top German companies and a high-level delegation of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Vajpayee said the complementarities between India and Germany open up a vast range of possibilities for economic, scientific and technological co-operation.

"A fuller awareness of the mutual advantage of collaboration can play a crucial role in transforming our relations into a vibrant strategic partnership. This is the challenge for the business communities of our two countries," he said.

Inviting German investment in the new Indian projects, the Prime Minister said India was today creating and upgrading a network of highways connecting its major cities and with smaller towns and villages.

"To give you some idea of the magnitude of this task, imagine reconditioning and building afresh over 13,000 km of highways from Helsinki to Istanbul and from Gibraltar to Moscow."

Another project of Indian focus, he said, is the linking of major rivers, both to optimise the use of water and for river transportation.

Ports and railways were also on India's infrastructure development. As a world leader in transportation engineering, Germany was well placed to take advantages of these opportunities, he added.

PTI