New Delhi, Feb. 1: India and the Gulf Cooperation Council will hold their first ever industries ministers’ meeting in Mumbai this month in a move that is likely to deepen economic cooperation and strengthen political ties between the two sides.

Industries ministers from the six member countries of the council — Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman — will participate in the India-GCC Industrial Conference in India’s financial capital on February 17 and 18. Council secretary-general Abdurrahaman bin Hamad al-Attiyah will also attend the conference.

The first industrial conference between the two, being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, gathers significance because of its potential to deepen economic and trade ties between the two sides and improve the political climate between India and nations of the Gulf.

There is a possibility that al-Attiyah will also come to Delhi after the Mumbai conference ends, to hold talks with Indian leaders, though the dates are still to be worked out. The conference will also give India the opportunity to balance its growing ties with Israel and assure the Arab world that Delhi is not abandoning its traditional friends because of its ties with Tel Aviv.

The Gulf is of immense strategic importance to India. More than three million Indians work there and send back nearly $6 billion every year as remittance. The two-way trade between India and countries of the council is over $12 billion and the region is also the main source of India’s energy supplies.

After the September 11 terror strikes in the US, there is a growing perception that Gulf countries — who have mainly invested in the West — are looking for new investment destinations as the image of the Arabs in Europe and the US had turned negative.

Members of the council have been looking at Africa and the East Asia as new investment destinations. India wants to take the opportunity provided by the February conference to project itself as an attractive investment destination and also highlight areas where it can enter into joint ventures with Gulf countries.

India has traditionally had cordial relations with members of the council, which are important countries in the Arab and Islamic world. But high-level visits to and between Delhi and Gulf capitals have been very few.

An attempt is now being made to strengthen political ties — though there is a strong economic content in the relationship — by putting in place a structure that will allow an annual summit between the two sides.

Foreign minister Yashwant Sinha made the first breakthrough when he held a meeting with al-Attiyah on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.

The meeting between the two gave Sinha the opportunity of assessing the Gulf countries’ reaction to the possible participation of Indian troops in the stabilisation of Iraq. The negative impact of the proposed move may have helped in the Indian decision not to send troops to help the US-initiated process.

The meeting, described as exploratory in nature, was not limited to the exchange of views on developments in Iraq, but also provided India the opportunity to assess the situation in West Asia and other important developments in the world.

Sinha had succeeded in convincing the secretary-general of the council that India’s decision to jointly fight terrorism with Israel does not necessarily mean a dilution of Delhi’s stand on Palestine or its leader Yasser Arafat.