The Cabinet Secretary of India./ Photographed by Ha Man-joo

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By Ha Man-joo, India correspondent, AsiaToday - Korea and India held a series of working-level meetings on October 12-14 in New Delhi to enhance bilateral economic cooperation.

According to Korean and Indian government officials on Wednesday, the talks were attended by related department officials to discuss the aviation agreement revision, comprehensive CEPA follow-up, and mitigation of import regulation.

Hong Young-ki, deputy director general for multilateral economic affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, met Ajay Bhalla, director general for anti dumping at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and Vinay Chhabra, director general of Safeguards, and requested for mitigation and abolition of trade restrictions over Korean companies.

Hong said that Korea is one of the countries facing tough trade restrictions in India. Excessive trade restrictions could lead to increase in raw material price, and eventually hinder India's industrial development.

Mentioning anti-dumping duty on steel imports, he said many countries are overusing trade restrictions due to the current economic downturn and that the overuse of trade restrictions will eventually harm everyone by worsening the economy.

In response, the Indian government official said they will consider the issue actively to be resolved in a positive way.

Lee Moon-ki, director general of the ministry's aviation policy office, met Arun Kumar, joint secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, on October 13-14 to discuss revision of aviation agreement. The two-day meeting was a follow-up action of the amendment agreement of the bilateral Air Services Agreement announced by President Park Geun-hye and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a summit talk held in May in Seoul.

Jung Moo-kyung, director of tax policy at the Ministry of Strategy & Finance, met Sandeep Kumar, commissioner at Customs & Central Excise Department at the Indian Ministry of Finance, on Monday to examine the existing state of CEPA's tax category and exchange views on areas that require improvement.