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India, Central Asian states to prepare roadmap to develop trade — declaration

The leaders noted that the current level of trade and investments between India and Central Asian countries was far from realizing its true potential and stressed on the importance of making concerted efforts to boost trade and investment

NEW DELHI, January 27. /TASS/. India and Central Asian states plan to prepare a roadmap for development of trade and industrial cooperation, the Declaration of the 1st India-Central Asia Summit says. The summit was held online on Thursday.

"The Leaders directed their respective Ministers to prepare a Roadmap for enhancing mutual trade volume and industrial cooperation between India and the Central Asian countries," the declaration says.

"The Leaders noted that the current level of trade and investments between India and Central Asian countries is far from realizing its true potential and stressed on the importance of making concerted efforts to boost trade and investment in sectors like medicine, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, education, information technology, business process outsourcing (BPO), infrastructure, agriculture and processing of agricultural products, energy, space industry, textiles, leather and footwear industry, gems and jewelry etc.

"They welcomed the development of direct contacts between the States of India and the Regions of Central Asian countries, including through establishment of partnership arrangements between them," according to the document.

The India-Central Asia Summit was held online on Thursday at the initiative of New Delhi. It was attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

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