Kamal Nath

Commerce and Industry Minister, India

Date of Birth: 18/11/1946

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wants more trade with India. During his 16-19 November trip to New Delhi, he marketed Egypt as a gateway to Africa and an attractive investment in its own right. The pitch fell on the ears of Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who is interested in building an Indian industrial zone there. Indian imports mainly oil and gas from Egypt. Bilateral trade stands at US$3 bn. annually; the two countries want that to rise to $10 bn. by 2010. India will need to diversify its imports.

As Commerce Minister since 2004, Nath champions India’s new Foreign Trade Policy, a more liberal strategy than under his predecessors, that aims to double exports from 2004-2009. The export target has already been surpassed; Nath now talks of procuring ‘those imports which are required to stimulate our economy’.

In 1980, Nath was elected to Lok Sabra, the lower house in India’s parliament, for Chhindwara constituency, and held the seat in six subsequent terms. In 1991, he took his first cabinet post, as Minister for Environment and Forests. He later served as Textiles Minister. He became Secretary General of the Indian National Congress party in 2001, then took up his post at the Commerce Ministry in May 2004.

Minister Nath opened the Plenary Meeting of the Kimberly Process in New Delhi earlier this month, 3-6 November. India has taken the chair of the KP this year just as the effects of the financial slowdown hit the international diamond trade.