DAMMAM: A 10-member delegation of Indian businessmen on Sunday met key executives of the Eastern Province chamber of commerce and discussed taking the Saudi-Indian trade ties to the next level and the legal and regulatory impediments that must be overcome.
Sharad Nandurdikar of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) led the Indian delegation. He is also the managing director of Simon India Ltd., an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company that has been active in Jubail for the last three years, first in the construction of the Chemanol petrochemical complex and now with a SABIC project. Nandurdikar and other businessmen, such as Jagjiv Kumar Arora, Vinod Kumar Khera, Uma Shanker and Vivek Thakur, accompanied Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for talks in Riyadh with Commerce and Industry Minister Abdullah Zainal Alireza.
At the Indo-Saudi Joint Commission meeting on Saturday it was decided to issue multiple-entry visas to businessmen.
“This was a major impediment. Every time we wanted to come to Saudi Arabia to do business our people had visa issues; likewise, Saudi businessmen had similar complaints. Now that has been resolved,” said Nandurdikar. “To make all these rules transparent and to make them easier to understand for the business community we suggested that rather than leaving this only to the governments of our two countries we should involve the chambers of commerce of the two countries to take the lead.”
Nandurdikar said an important meeting is slated in Delhi for early 2010 to address specific issues regarding processes and procedures, and he encouraged Saudi businessmen to take part.
Indian delegates noted that India’s trade ties with Saudi Arabia ended with Saudi Arabia selling oil and India sending expatriate labor. “Over the last five years, however, the contours of this relationship have changed substantially. We are participating in a big way in construction and building activity here, and Saudi Arabia is investing substantially in India in some of the knowledge-based industries,” Nandurdikar said.
Adnan A. Al-Nueim, secretary-general of the Asharqia Chamber, said Saudi Arabia’s trade relations with India are set to grow further with the reciprocal visits. He said Saudi-Indian ties advanced after the 2006 visit of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to India.
“Indian businessmen nowadays increasingly visit the Kingdom, and a number of catalog exhibitions of Indian products have been organized in different Saudi cities,” said Al-Nueim.
