Nicosia, Aug 16 Indian Ambassador to Oman Anil Wadhwa has said that bilateral trade between Oman and India is growing steadily and if the recent trade figures are any indication, "it is set to reach 2.5 billion dollars by the end of 2009".

In an interview with Oman Daily Observer on the occasion of India's Independence Day, Wadhwa said that the volume of Indo-Oman bilateral trade was 447 million dollars during January-February 2009 against 398.7 million dollars in the same period last year.

Citing some examples, he said, "L andT has signed a memorandum of understanding for setting up L andT Heavy Engineering Company in Sohar for manufacturing critical equipment for the construction industry. In the field of oil exploration, Reliance and a consortium of GAIL, HPCL, BPCL and Videocon have already won the rights to explore several oil blocks."

"Infoline is seeking tie-ups with Infosys and Wipro. The Taj and Oberoi groups are engaged in talks for setting up luxury hotels in the Sultanate. Tata Group has floated a company called Reemal Mining Company on 70:30 equity basis with the Al Bahja Group for mining of limestone and gypsum in Oman," he added.

Earlier this month, Ambassador Wadhwa, addressing the third meeting of the India-Oman Business Forum, said that total trade between the two countries during 2007, including Omani LNG exports, stood at 1.8 billion dollars, up by 98 per cent over the previous year. (ANI)