Foreign Direct Investment in India grew by a healthy nine per cent in 2002 despite worldwide economic slowdown, Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday.

''The FDI in India, if External Commercial Borrowings and earnings ploughed in the business by foreign companies are taken into account, totaled eight billion dollars,'' Jaitley said at the Indo-Swedish Business Meet organised by the CII here.

Stating that the fundamentals of Indian economy were strong, the minister invited cooperation with Swedish companies in the fields of Information Technology, energy, telecom, infrastructure development and environment.

''The Indian economy has grown at five per cent in the last two decades and despite disturbing international environment inflation will hover around five per cent. Industrial growth and exports are looking up. All this makes India a fertile ground for Swedish companies,'' he said.

Jaitley said that India-Sweden trade has grown by 30 per cent in the last few years to touch $550 million in 2002-02, however, there were some hurdles in cooperation between two countries.

Changes in visa regulations and taxation on foreign workers in Sweden should be looked at, he said.

Industry and Trade Minister of Sweden, Leif Pagrotsky, said that the full potential of trade between the two countries have not been exploited.

He also identified IT, telecom, biotech as areas of cooperation between the two countries. ''India has done extremely well in IT in the last ten years and this gives us special interest here,' Pagrotsky said.

He also invited the Indian companies to invest in Sweden. ''We have an exciting future ahead of us,'' Pagrotsky said.

An MoU between Confederation of Indian Industry and Confederation of Swedish Enterprise was later in the day.

UNI