India and Sweden have agreed to fully observe the development focus in the implementation of the Doha Work Programme and reaffirmed their commitment to the objectives of the WTO Work Programme launched at Doha. This was indicated in a protocol of the 14th session of the Indo-Swedish Joint Commission for Economic, Industrial, Technical & Scientific Cooperation signed here today by Arun Jaitley, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Law & Justice on behalf of the Government of India and Leif Pagrotsky, Minister of Industry & Trade on behalf of the Government of Sweden. Both sides expressed their keenness in expanding and diversifying the bilateral trade and economic relations. V. Govindarajan, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) was also present on the occasion along with senior officials from both sides and members of the high-level business delegation from Sweden.

In his address, Jaitley said that India was actively participating in all the elements of the Doha Work Programme. At the same time, India was concerned at the delays in meeting the Doha deadlines on development-related issues. The Swedish Minister said that his country was in full agreement of India's view and added that the concerns of developing countries should be fully addressed. Jaitley indicated that India has expertise in the knowledge-based industries and proposed accelerated cooperation in the areas of IT, biotechnology and bio-informatics, telecommunications, health care & pharmaceuticals and food processing. Joint R&D and technology transfer also could be considered in some of the areas, he added.

Both the Ministers emphasised the positive development and the growing importance of the bilateral trade relations and expressed satisfaction at the signing of the MOU between the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise.

The bilateral trade during 2001-02 was of the order of US $ 556 million encompassing Indian exports of US $ 154 million and Swedish exports of US $ 402 million. During 2001-02, the bilateral trade has registered a growth of about 34% over the previous year. Both the Ministers expressed the need to diversify the trade baskets to enhance the economic cooperation.