Poland to bank on tech aids in partnership bid with India

Kolkata: Poland wants to partner with Bengal in the coal and energy sector by providing the latest technological assistance in this regard.

"Our objective is to have trade relations based on mutual understanding for which we have a high-level delegation at the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS). Silesia Province is expected to sign a MoU with the Bengal government in the summit for cooperation in the coal and energy sector," Marek Magierowski, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, said on the sidelines of an event at The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry that hosted a delegation by Indo-Polish Chambers of Commerce and Industries, Warsaw (IPCCI) on Monday, a day ahead of the fourth edition of BGBS.

The high-profile delegation comprises majority of the representatives from energy and mining sectors. The delegation met state Industry and Finance minister Amit Mitra and also held a meeting with Coal India for exploring the areas for investment in coal and allied sectors. Food Processing, mining and defence are some other areas where Poland is eyeing investment in Bengal.

Magierowski is leading the Polish delegation, accompanied by Grzegorz Tobiszowski, First Deputy Minister of Energy of Poland and Małgorzata Ochęduszko-Ludwik, Deputy Chief Minister of the Silesia Province, Poland to name a few.

It may be mentioned that Poland is already India's largest trade partner in Central Europe, with trade between them witnessing an encouraging trend in recent years. In the coal and steel sector, both sides have drawn a roadmap to strengthen cooperation in areas such as thick seam underground coal mining, exploitation of highly gassy seams, developing clean coal technologies and transfer of technologies in deep coal mining from Poland to India.

Poland has proposed to set up a 2.7 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) coking coal plant in India