India and Qatar signed six agreements recently

                India and Qatar, signed six agreements recently in diverse areas, including a pact on co-operation in oil and gas exploration. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held talks with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani on a range of issues, including boosting trade and investment as well as energy ties between the two countries. Issues relating to the welfare of Indian workers in the Gulf country were also discussed.

                After the talks, India’s Petroleum Minister S Jaipal Reddy and Qatar’s Energy Minister Mohammed Bin Saleh al-Sada signed a pact on establishing a cooperative framework to enhance the bilateral cooperation in oil and gas.

                 The pact envisages cooperation in the areas of upstream and downstream oil and gas activities. It is expected to encourage and promote investment and cooperation between two ministers of oil and gas and through affiliated companies.

                 Qatar, which holds the world’s third largest natural gas reserves after Russia and Iran, has an LNG (liquefied natural gas) export capacity of 77 million tons per year.

                 India buys 7.5 million tons of LNG from Qatar under a long term contract. India imported 5.6 million tons of oil from Qatar in 2010-11 and is willing to increase the imports. Three agreements were signed in the fields of educational exchange, cultural contacts and promoting tourism.

                A memorandum of agreement was signed between the Reserve Bank of India and Qatar Central Bank. The pact will establish an arrangement for sharing of supervisory information and enhancing cooperation in the area of banking supervision. Another pact on exchange of experiences, information and expertise in the field of legal affairs was also signed.