Financing package will be signed by June

South Korea and India have agreed to launch the US$10 billion Seoul-New Delhi financial program for Indian infrastructure development by June, the Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance said in Seoul on 31 March 2017.

The ministry said the two countries will sign a deal to support the US$10 billion package for infrastructure funding in India through the state-run Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) before June.

The working-level meeting, held in New Delhi 30 March, 2017, discussed ways to bolster bilateral economic and financial cooperation.

In a summit in 2015, heads of the two countries reached an agreement on the program, aimed at helping develop India’s infrastructure.

Officials at the meeting also agreed to hold a finance ministers’ meeting in Seoul later this year, according to a report by the Korean news agency Yonhap.

A detailed schedule and agenda for the ministerial meeting is to be discussed later, added the ministry.

India is South Korea’s eighth-largest trading partner, with Korean exports reaching US$11.6 billion in 2016.

Among Korean recent investments in India is Kia Motors Corp car making plant in Andhra Pradesh.

Kia is aiming to to leverage the existing supplier base of its affiliate Hyundai Motor Co, India’s second-biggest automaker by sales.

The proposed factory would start production in 2019 and eventually ramp up capacity to 300,000 Kia vehicles a year,  according to media reports. fii-news.com