Bangalore: New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke today (Oct 18, 2004) visited software major Infosys and Biotech major Biocon and interacted with officials on the emerging areas of IT and Biotechnology.

Clarke, who arrived in Bangalore accompanied by an ICT delegation yesterday (Oct 17, 2004), spent nearly an hour each in both the companies, seen as the benchmark for Indian IT and Biotech sector.

India's richest woman and Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar Shaw took Clarke and her team around the Biocon campus and explained the capabilities of the country's largest biotech firm.

"We see lot of opportunities to step up trade between India and New Zealand," Clarke, who is the first New Zealand prime minister to visit India in close to two decades after David Lange's trip in 1985, said on arrival on her two-day trip to India's hi-tech hub.