At a delegation level talks between the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister, Anand Sharma and the visiting Czech Minister for Industry and Trade, Martin Kocourek here on Monday, it was also agreed to boost the bilateral trade to $2 billion by 2012 from current level of $1.3 billion which in itself is an increase of 26% from the earlier year.

Sharma accepted the invitation of his Czech counterpart for the next meeting of the Commission.

He also stressed the need of a liberal visa regime for business people and suggested that a system of issue of long-term business visa on the recommendations of apex business chambers should be put in place. The Czech Minister agreed that visa regime needs to be addressed more forcefully and informed the Indian side that next week his government will discuss Investment Incentive Act for the Czech Republic and corresponding resolution of visa related issues will form part of the discussion.

On the ongoing India-EU BTIA negotiations, the Czech Minister assured of his country’s support to the negotiations and informed the Indian side that his country being led by the liberal wing of EU politicians fully supports the negotiations. Sharma on his part briefed him about his conversation with EU Trade Commissioner, Karl De Gucht on Friday where both the leaders emphasized that the negotiations should be concluded before the upcoming India-EU Summit.

Sharma expressed happiness over the fact that Czech Republic has launched a National Strategy of Competitiveness in which he visualised a great potential ‘to improve the width and depth of economic engagement between the two countries especially in the areas of information technology, pharmaceuticals, textiles and energy.

Sharma is slated to Chair a meeting of the Board of Trade on October 11. Few important items of the meeting would be to take views on the trade scenario of the country, overview of the global trade, policy measures to mitigate fallout of the adverse scenario, procedural simplifications and views on strategy paper put by the Department of Commerce.

The members of the Board of Trade are: Chairman, Apollo Tyres, Onkar S. Kunwar, Hero Honda Group MD, Pawan Mujal, Unitech MD, Ramesh Chandra, Chairperson Bicon Ltd, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman Wockhardt, Habil F. Khirakikala, Shiv Nadar of HCL terchnologies, YC Deveshwar of ITC, Venu Srinivasan of TVS Motors, Chanda D. Kochhar of ICICI, Ramu S Deora, Hari Bahrtiya and Rajan Bharti Mittal.

Indian Commerce Secretary, Rahul Khullar and Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Dr Anup K Pujari will also be attending apart from the Members.

The Board of Trade has a dynamic role of advising government on relevant issues connected with Foreign Trade Policy. There is a process of continuous interaction between the Board of Trade and Government in order to achieve the desired objective of boosting India`s exports. It also advises the government on preparation and implementation of short term as well as long term strategies for enhancing exports in the light of emerging national and international trade scenarios.