Saudi-India trade records 45 percent jump 

(MENAFN - Arab News) During this week's visit to Jeddah of a delegation of the Council of Leather Exports of India (CLE), a buyer-seller meet was organized at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Adnan Mandoura, secretary-general of JCCI, and Indian Consul General Faiz Ahmad Kidwai inaugurated the event.

Mandoura welcomed the delegates and said there was a tremendous scope to improve the commercial and business relations between India and Saudi Arabia. He hoped that such visits would further strengthen business cooperation between the two countries. Kidwai said the trade between the two countries has increased by more than 45 percent in 2011-12. He pointed out that the tourism road show and the food festival of India that were organized in Jeddah in January 2012 received massive response. "Given the huge success of the last shows, the Ministry of Tourism is planning another road show on tourism and food festival next month," he said. R. Ramesh Kumar, executive director, CLE, and leader of visiting delegation, gave an impressive presentation demonstrating India's sizeable presence in the international leather market.

According to him, a lot of initiatives are being taken by the Indian government to improve the quality and capacity of the Indian leather industry which is primarily based in Chennai, Kanpur and Agra.

He said the Indian leather industry exports witnessed 22.68 percent growth and earned 4.86 billion in revenues in 2011-12. "We expect to reach a target of 17 billion by 2017," he said.

A large number of Saudi businessmen and executives attended the event and made enquiries about the leather goods in the show that primarily focused on footwear.