Sunday, June 5 2005 18:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Onboard President's Aircraft: Terming India as a technological super power, President A P J Abdul Kalam has said the country was not only looking for investments from other countries but was also willing to invest there.

Speaking to reporters onboard while returning from his 14-day visit to four nations - Russia, Switzerland, Iceland and Ukraine, Kalam said, "During my meetings with state heads and other officials, I made it clear that India was looking forward to invest in their countries besides looking for investments in certain fields."

The President said India had the "technological power, knowledge power and will definitely look to share this power."

"My only dream is to see India as a developed nation by year 2020," a satisfied Kalam said.

Referring to the support for India's candidature for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, Kalam said, "We have support from Russia, Ukraine and Iceland, which has also offered to co-sponsor the G-4 resolution."

"Switzerland first wants reforms to the United Nations before deciding on India's candidature to UNSC. They will also like to study G-4 resolution first," he said.

He said he would take up all the matters related to trade with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet colleagues to draw an action-oriented plan for implementation.

'Ties between India, Russia further strengthened'

Referring to his to Russia, Kalam said ties between India and Russia, which have already been strong, would be further strengthened following his visit to that country.

The President said that during his Russia visit, the two countries identified five areas for cooperation which include forecasting earthquakes, cooperation in nano-science, mathematics and laser science technology, and trade.

"The trade target has been fixed at $25 billion by the year 2010," Kalam said.

India has also offered to cooperate in oil exploration while Russia has offered its expertise in nuclear power generation.

The President said India and Russia have also agreed to discuss launching a joint satellite for youth which would benefit millions of students across the world.

Satellites to Swiss researchers

About his visit to Switzerland, Kalam said India and Switzerland have agreed on a joint space research programme in which New Delhi will also offer its satellites to Swiss researchers.

The joint research programme envisages use of space technology for peaceful purposes, including to predict avalanches, he said and added India has also offered its satellite launch-pads to place Swiss satellites into orbit.

"We will also be looking at cooperation from Swiss industry in pharmaceutical and precision engineering and manufacturing business," Kalam said.

He said the trade between the two countries will also pick up during the coming year.

During his stay in Switzerland, India and European Organisation for Nuclear Research, popularly known as CERN, also signed a Statement of Intent under which the existing scientific and technical cooperation between India and Nuclear Centre would be extended further.

The agreement, which will facilitate further research in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), aims to encourage extending the existing scientific and technical cooperation between India and CERN particularly in the fields of novel accelerator and information technologies.

The President said this agreement would go a long way in helping the Indian scientists.

'Beautiful Island'

Referring to Iceland, which he termed as a "beautiful island", Kalam said the emphasis was laid on pushing trade ties between the two nations to three digits. "We only have a trade of $17 million between us, which needs to be pushed up," Kalam said.

He said that India would also be looking at cooperation from Iceland in earthquake prediction system and also identifying geo-thermal energy and intensifying cooperation in deep-sea fishing.

Raising trade relations with Ukraine

About his Ukraine visit, Kalam said India was looking for cooperation in space research and the agreement signed between the countries about space would help intensifying in certain areas.

"We have also fixed a target of raising the trade relations from existing $780 million to five billion dollars by year 2010," Kalam said.

The President termed his visit to the four countries as "more than satisfying".