The government on Wednesday said it was aiming to almost double the trade between India and Germany to $10 billion by next year from $5.5 billion at present.
"In order to achieve a quantum jump in economic cooperation between the two countries, the latent potentialities of the small and medium businesses have to be explored," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said.
"German firms were known for their technical and engineering excellence and if this is combined with German investment, I see tremendous scope for cooperation in infrastructure. Investment increases trade and the result of that investment also increases trade," Nath said at the 48th Annual General Meeting of Indo-German Chamber of Commerce.
He said knowledge economy, including information technology, bio-technology and entertainment industry is important in economic strategies of both countries and stressed the need to fully exploit the synergies.
The minister said Germany has emerged as the sixth largest investor in India with approvals of $2.5 billion and actual inflow of $1 billion.
"An exclusive German window is functioning in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion for focussed enhancement of industrial cooperation with Germany. We need to effectively utilise all such instruments towards achieving our objective," Nath said.
In terms of total number of collaborations approved, Germany is second only to US. India's exports to Germany are $2.5 billion and imports stand at $3.0 billion.
