Friday, July 7 2006 11:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: India and Italy will seek to raise their political, strategic, economic and cultural ties to new heights when Prime Minister Romano Prodi visits here in January 2007, a visiting Italian minister says.

"We hope Premier Prodi will be able to make a visit in January 2007. We are confident that during this visit, we will be able to take forward our relations on the political, strategic and economic levels to greater levels," Italian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Gianni Vernetti told sources in an interview.

Vernetti is the first ranking Italian minister to visit India since Prodi assumed office in April after the general elections.

"We have good bilateral relations and good commercial relations. There is good scope for building a special partnership with India," Vernetti maintained.

"We want to build a strategic and political partnership with India," he added.

Asked for specifics, he said this could translate into greater engagements in the political and defence spheres.

"India is the largest democratic country in the world. We can do more since we think on the same lines so we have to increase our political engagement. Then, there is the case of military cooperation particularly between our navies and coast guards," the minister pointed out.

Asked if this would translate into more exercises involving navy and coast guard vessels, the minister replied: "I'm not an expert on that but I think there can be greater coordination between our navies and coast guards."

During his two-day visit, Vernetti said he was 'overwhelmed' by the degree of "goodwill" that Italy enjoyed in India.

"At my meeting with (Indian counterpart) Anand Sharma, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much goodwill we enjoyed here. Then I thought about it and I realised how much we have in common in the way we think. This makes us natural allies," Vernetti maintained.