Minister sees opportunities for European companies in India
Europe is truly a priority for India, says External Affairs Minister https://www.mea.gov.in/ Dr S Jaishankar, emphasising how deep, how sustained and how continuous the relationship has been, going by the number of government official visits exchanged by both sides.
“The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, during his tenure, has been 27 times to Europe. He has received 37 heads of European governments. I have visited Europe 29 times and I have received 36 of my colleagues during this period,” he told delegates at the 2nd CII India Europe Business and Sustainability Conclave on 20 Feb at New Delhi.
The Minister said there are six broad elements that drive the world economy — production and consumption, connectivity and logistics, technology, demographics, values and comforts and architecture or framework to do business.
“In a digital age, we all appreciate the importance of trust and transparency, this is the age of AI, it is the age of Electric Vehicles, it is the age of critical and emerging technologies, of space and of smart cities and smart technologies,” he said.
“We see this reflected in our daily lives, in the economic developments that surround us, and certainly a lot of what we are doing, we believe today that there are opportunities for European companies https://corporateeurope.org/en ,” the minister added.
Speaking about human skilling and mobility, Dr Jaishankar said: “We have in the last few years concluded a number of agreements on mobility with our European https://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en partners and the plus point of these agreements are that one, they promote legal movement and two, they promote movement of certain skillsets. So, it is something that fits in very neatly with the consumer requirement at the other end as well.”
He also underlined the importance of concluding free trade agreements with European Union and EFTA https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/eu-market-overview . “It is important because you can already see that our trade levels have been growing steadily, but there is a well-founded realisation that we need a more positive framework to accelerate it,” he stressed.
Talking about connectivity and climate change, the Minister said that apart from the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, a polar route https://www.iata.org/ could open up a different logistical pathway between India and Europe that would go through the Indo-Pacific. Fiinews
