Friday, July 1 2005 12:55 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) and the Sweden Indian Business Council (SIBC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote bilateral trade and investment.

The MoU was signed in Stockholm yesterday (Jun 30, 2005) in the presence of the Indian Minister for Communications and Informational Technology, Dayanidhi Maran and his Swedish counterpart, Ulrike Messing.

Earlier, Maran had wide-ranging discussion with Messing on ways and means of further strengthening bilateral cooperation in strategic areas of Information and Communication Technology.

"While appreciating the more than a century old presence of Swedish companies like Ericsson in India, Maran invited the Swedish small and medium enterprises to collaborate with Indian companies to enhance their competitiveness," said sources to India News in a Europe Programme in Stockholm.

During his two-day visit, which concluded yesterday, Maran visited the rural network in the northern remotest part of Sweden. He invited the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) companies to India Soft 2006.

The Minister inaugurated a round table on ICT collaboration at which a 16-member business delegation under the aegis of FICCI also participated. Maran invited messing to lead a business delegation of small and medium enterprises to India later this year.