NEW DELHI: India and Poland on Tuesday discussed ways to strengthen bilateral relationship, especially in defence, trade and investment, during delegation-level talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his visiting Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk. Defence cooperation with Poland surged in the Cold War era from the early 70s when much of the Indian defence equipment was of Soviet origin and has continued, albeit at a low key since. India is at present looking to Poland for maintenance of Soviet\Russian equipment, including aircraft and for the supply of auxiliary equipment such as tank recovery vehicles.
Malgorzata Tusk cuts a ribbon as she hands over a brass bust of Fryderyk Chopin, one of the greatest musicians of the 19th century, to the National Gallery of Modern Art.
Positive feature
“A particular positive feature is that Poland, unlike some of our business partners, is not interested only in selling the equipment to us but is also ready for joint ventures and technology transfer. A Polish company is already in collaboration with an Indian company for some items and there are discussions under way for expanding that cooperation further,'' Joint Secretary (Central Europe) Banashree Bose Harrison told journalists here.
Discussion on cooperation in defence, which was deliberated upon at the fourth Defence Joint Working Group meeting in April this year, covered spares as well as technology for maintaining and upgrading several kinds of equipment, including some that Poland is interested in supplying.
Talks on trade and commerce with Poland are termed important because the country is India's largest trading partner and export destination in the Central-European region and will assume the Presidency of EU in the second half of 2011.
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