Luigi Di Maio says India is a key country in Italian companies’ global strategy
Italy and India are experiencing a dynamic economic cooperation with 2020-21 bilateral trade reaching a record Euro10 billion, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation Luigi Di Maio has told a recently held round table.
The Italian Government is eager to reinforce cooperation between the two countries at the industry level as well as between entrepreneurs, he said.
“Today’s meeting is an important step forward in shaping our strategic partnership,” said Di Maio, adding, “Many Italian companies, in their long-term strategy, consider India as a key country whose market will drive growth on a global scale.”
“Over 600 Italian companies, mainly concentrated around Delhi and Mumbai, employ about 50,000 local staff with a global turnover of Euro5 billion,” he said.
He co-chaired the India-Italy Business Roundtable with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a release on 6 May 2022.
Goyal also told the round table that India looks forward to significant transformational and exponential growth in its trade with Italy.
“Today’s engagement is only the first in a series that we are planning between India and Italy. A world of 1.35 billion Indians awaits, aspires for a better future.
“India offers the largest business opportunity anywhere in the world as we progress from a US$3 trillion economy today to a US$10 trillion economy in 10 years to a US$30 trillion economy in 20 odd years and to a US$50 trillion economy.
“I believe we all are committed to, particularly when we see that we still are at very, very initial stages of development in the country, (such as) the large size of the market, the deep aspirations of the people of India and the talent and the world of opportunity that India provides,” said Goyal, expressing the hope that “businesses on both sides to (will) strengthen their partnerships”.
The two Ministers also held one-to-one meeting on multiple issues of bilateral interests such as enhancing trade and investment opportunities, India-EU FTA negotiations, cooperation in the framework of the WTO, Tech Summit on energy transition, resumption of direct commercial flights and promotion of SMEs’ partnerships etc.
Due to the active relationship between India and Italy and the regular resolution of issues, Goyal suggested evolving and expanding the fast track mechanism established between India and Italy to focus on enhancing economic cooperation and harnessing bilateral trade and investment potential to establish complementarities across focus sectors.
Both ministries reiterated the need and potential for closer industrial collaborations and further expand partnerships and establish trade and investment linkages across priority areas such as railways, defence and aviation, automotives & electric mobility, food processing, leather, textiles and fashion, infrastructure financing, fintech, green energy, telecom, energy transition, and space and technology cooperation, according to the Ministry release. fiinews.com
