Anti-money laundering pact with Cyprus to boost investment cross-flows: Kovind
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Nicosia: An anti-money laundering memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between India and Cyprus will help boost investment cross-flows between the two countries, President Ram Nath Kovind said here on Monday.
"We welcome the signing of the MoU between Financial Intelligence Unit, India, and the Unit for Combating Money Laundering of Cyprus," Kovind said while addressing the media after a bilateral meeting with Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades.
"This agreement would further strengthen the institutional framework to facilitate investment cross-flows," he said.
Cyprus is the eighth largest investor in India with a cumulative investment of around $9.2 billion.
"We also emphasised that the revision in the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement made in 2016 provided greater opportunities for our investment partnership to grow," Kovind said.
Stating that he and President Anastasiades held detailed discussions on the way forward for bilateral long-standing and excellent relations, Kovind said: "We reviewed our ongoing bilateral and multilateral engagements and discussed issues of regional and global concern."
Apart from the agreement on combating money laundering, India and Cyprus also signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of environment.
Kovind said that he and Anastasiades called for enhancing business collaboration in the fields of IT and IT-enabled services, tourism, shipping and renewable energy.
The Indian President thanked Anastasiades for his "express support for an early adoption of the India-initiated Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) at the UN.
"I thanked Cyprus for extending support for India's permanent membership of the UN Security Council," Kovind said.
"I also expressed our gratitude to Cyprus for extending continued and strong support to India for its membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and help us move on clean energy pathway."
Kovind arrived here on Sunday on the first leg of his eight-day three-nation tour of Central Europe that will also see him visiting Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.
His visit comes in the wake of Anastasiades's visit to India in April last year.