Berlin: Seeking more German investment in the country, India on September 16 tried to dispel the image of being a country sought by big companies for cheap labour and said more and more multinationals were setting up bases in the country for better research and development (R&D) facilities.

Speaking at the inauguration of Indo-German Business Co-operation, Union Minister for Information Technology and Disinvestment, Arun Shourie said, "India should not be seen as a destination for cheap labour by German companies. Many big multi-national companies have set up their offices in the country for having a better research and development."

Giving examples to this, he said Intel started its company in India with only 12 people some years ago and now the company has nearly 1,000 well qualified employees and they plan to increase it to 2,400 in coming months.

"Out of the 500 Fortune companies in the country, at least 100 companies have set up their offices in our country as we have been providing world class research facilities," he said and wondered as to why German companies were lagging behind in investment whereas all international markets were eyeing India as a major market.

Stating that the two countries had enormous potential for economic co-operation, Shourie wondered as to why German investments had fallen from $ 250 billion to $ 50 billion over a period of time.

"This is astonishingly happening at a time when co-operation between the two countries have been cemented much in the past," he added.

Shourie admitted that the reforms process in the country needed to gain momentum but said, "We have been able to do a lot like cutting down on import duty drastically in seven years, which is much ahead of the (WTO) schedule. We are committed to zero per cent regime in electronics by year 2005 and abolishment of quotas in textiles by the same time."

Highlighting other achievements, Shourie said the time at the Indian ports had been reduced to four and a half days as compared to 10 days earlier.

"Gone are the days when we were waiting for the Paris meeting of India club which would decide the amount of loan we would get. Nowadays we lend money to IMF (International Monetary Fund) and in October 2002 we gave them $ 300 million and very recently we gave them $ 250 million," he said.

"We have foreign exchange worth of $ 87 billion and two billions are added to it every two weeks," he said.

Shourie said the two countries should exchange students with each other and ensure that after completion of their studies they were absorbed in the each other's companies.

PTI