Merkel has accepted the Prime Minister’s invitation to visit India with a large business delegation next year. But some deals have already been signed on day one of the Fair, the largest being an agreement between Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines and Airbus Industrie to purchase five A-340 aircraft at a cost of $1 billion. The delivery of the planes will begin in 2008 and Kingfisher intends to use them for flying to New York and San Francisco.

Indian Railways Board chairman J P Batra signed a Memorandum of Understanding with his counterpart from the German Railways (Deutsche Bahn), for cooperation in railway-related technologies and developments covering modernisation and servicing of rolling stock, signaling and telecommunications.