NEW DELHI, Jan. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath discussed expansion of trade between India and Britain with visiting British Minister of State for Trade Ian Pearson here Monday.

    The two ministers underlined the need to strengthen trade and economic cooperation between India and Britain, especially in the services sector.

    Kamal Nath also flagged India's interests in addressing the issue of tariff escalation in developed country markets. He said these adversely affected exports of value-added products from India.

    Britain is India's largest trading partner in European Union (EU) with two-way trade estimated at 7 billion U.S. dollars in 2004-2005.

    It was indicated during the discussions that the second meeting of the India-UK Joint Economic and Trade Commission (JETCO) would take place in London later this month. Substantive measures for increasing the scope of trade and investment between the two countries will be discussed then.

    While Britain raised the issue of market access of alcoholic beverages to India, India urged that Indian whisky be classified as whisky for market access purpose. Indian whisky is not allowed to be marketed in Europe so far. Enditem