India right place for investment from Gulf region: Anand Sharma

India has expressed hope that two-way trade and investment ties between India and the Gulf region will strengthen further, in order to double the bilateral trade turnover from the current $114 billion to $230 billion by 2014.

Inaugurating the second India-Arab Investment Projects Conclave, jointly organised by the ministry of external affairs, Ficci, the League of Arab States and the General Union of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture in New Delhi, minister of commerce and industry, Anand Sharma, said that given India's high domestic consumption and demand coupled with a high savings and capital formation rate of 38 per cent, the economy was projected to grow by 7.5 per cent this fiscal.

He added that India needed to return to the 9 per cent plus growth trajectory to economically empower India's 1.1 billion population.

Sharma said the government was determined to accelerate the momentum of growth and this could only be done in partnership with the Arab world.

He said that the Gulf region had large sovereign funds and India was the right place to invest. Unctad and other multilateral agencies had ranked India as one of the three most attractive investment destinations after China and the US and the returns from India were the highest amongst the emerging economies, he added.

Delivering the keynote address, Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for external affairs called for an early conclusion of the India-GCC Free Trade Agreement, which would further boost the economic engagement between India and the Arab world.