NEW DELHI, March 23: India is ready to spend up to $25 billion on overseas oil and gas ventures to meet spiralling demand, Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said Wednesday. “We are in a position to raise $25 billion to invest in acquiring oil and gas properties abroad,” the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency quoted Aiyar as telling a meeting of industrialists.

India’s state-owned oil firms already have stakes in oil and gas fields in Russia, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Qatar, Ivory Coast, Australia, Vietnam and Myanmar, but lag far behind Chinese companies, PTI said.

Aiyar said India and China would continue to be dictated to by market forces and compete in some areas but there were also possibilities for working together.

“My ambition is not to compete with China but to explore ways and means of partnering with it,” he said.

“There are enormous prospects for India and China to work together... our interests are complementary.” India buys nearly 70 per cent of its annual requirement from the global market.—AFP