India has asked Germany to de-link New Delhi from pre-permit group to facilitate exports to that country. The de-linking will enable India to export commodities under certain categories to Germany without prior permission in the absence of free trade agreement between the two countries. Addressing the inaugural of the 17th session of Indo-German Joint Commission on Industrial and Economic Co-operation in New Delhi today, the Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee invited German investors to invest in India in various sectors. He said that public-private partnership mode is an attractive opportunity for German investors to invest in the country. He said, Delhi-Mumbai and Chennai-Bangalore Freight Corridors are such an opportunity in road sector. In his opening remark, the German Minister of Economics and Technology, Mr. Rainer Brueberle said that India has a high potential in IT sector while Germany can contribute in various ways in developing India's energy sector including the nuclear one. On free trade agreement between the two countries, the visiting dignitary said, that some sort of flexibility will be achieved for final settlement. AIR correspondent reports, strong growth rates have been recorded for aircraft, foodstuffs, motor vehicles and machinery as well as for electrical and optical goods in the bilateral trade. Germany is India's principal trading partner in the EU and ranks 6th as a supplier of Indian imports and 7th as a buyer of Indian goods. Both the countries are hopeful of increasing the volume of bilateral trade to 20 billion Euros by the end of 2012. India ranks 26th among Germany are trading partners in terms of both imports and exports. Germany's trade surplus of approximately 3 billion Euros stands for strong Indian demand for German goods, especially capital goods, which account for some one-third of Germany's total exports to India. Important groups of goods in bilateral trade include chemical products and electrical goods as well as precision engineering products and optical goods. Indian exports to Germany focus on the textile sector, followed by chemical products, leather goods, foodstuffs, iron and iron goods and motor vehicles.