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German Chancellor coming |
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Afghanistan and business issues will dominate the talks of Prime Minister Vajpayee with the visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder later in the week. Germany is an important partner in the US-led international campaign against terrorism, but its views on the Government formation in Afghanistan after the collapse of Taliban are not yet clear. His visit will give India the opportunity to put on the table its views in the hope that he will influence the US thinking on the post-Taliban scenario which is inching closer to Pakistan’s plan to to once again associate the Taliban in their moderate garb sans hardliners in the militia in the next government. This is unacceptable to both Russia and India.
India will also have the benefit of listening from Mr. Schroeder Pakistan’s views on the issue. Both the German Foreign Minister and the Foreign secretary have been in Pakistan and their visits resulted in a decision to include a quick stopover there by Mr. Schroeder.
While Afghanistan may have ensured that it would not be business as usual for this visit, efforts have been made to ensure business forms a large component of the visit. The German Chancellor is coming with at least 35 top notch German businessmen. The attempt to keep the focus of the visit on a broad range of issues is amply demonstrated by the topic of the Chancellor’s address to the Indian business community at the CII : “Indo-German economic relations : Looking Ahead”.
The German Government meanwhile has decided to offer another 10 thousand green cards to IT professionals in 2002. The official announcement will be made by Mr. Schroeder during his visit to New Delhi and Bangalore. This takes the total amount of Green Cards offered by the German Government to 20 thousand since the policy was first announced in August, 2000. Over two thousand Indian IT professionals have already utilised the Green Card facility to work in Germany’s IT industry. The IT market in Germany is poised to become the largest market in Europe by 2005, worth over $85 billion, according to recent studies. Indian firms like wipro are also trying to break into the telecom market in Germany by offering solutions to big firms like Detsche Telecom.
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