Invest in infrastructure,
FICCI, chief tells
Swiss businessmen

A high-powered delegation of businessmen from Switzerland, headed by Joseph Deiss, Federal Councillor and Head of the Department of Economic Affairs, visited India recently. The delegation held a special business meeting with members of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi, after visiting Kolkata and Bangalore. In his welcome address, FICCI President Saroj Poddar said that India and Switzerland shared a very special relationship. Extending greetings to Deiss, who had just turned 60, Poddar said the two countries shared a winning economic partnership. Excerpts.
Sir, you and your high-powered business delegation will have seen for yourselves the kind of economic resurgence that is sweeping this country and the emerging new opportunities that could further deepen and diversify the links between India and Switzerland. India is one of the world's fastest growing economies. The robust growth rate of 7- 7.5 percent over the years has been quite impressive and is expected to continue. Tremendous opportunities exist in various sectors, including infrastructure such as roads, ports, railways, power etc, where the Investment opportunities are immense. It was indeed heartening to note your vision of 200 percent increase in Indo-Swiss trade and investment within the next three years, as shared by you recently. We, in FICCI, are confident that this is not an over-optimistic target and assure you of our support in realizing the same.
Today, Swiss companies like Nestle, Ciba, ABB, Sulzer, EMS Inventa, Specialty Chemicals, Rieter, Electrowatt, Novartis, Alusuisse, Bühler, etc. are household names in India. Kuoni in the tourism sector and Swiss Re in insurance are making a profound impact in their respective fields.



Several Indian companies such as TATA AG, Birla AG, Ramco, Infosys, Wipro and TCS are also making their mark in Switzerland.
The scope for such growth lies in India's diversified industrial base, which profits from self-reliance in all core industries. Moreover, India has a large and sophisticated financial architecture, a healthy production mix with agriculture contributing 22 percent, Industry 22 per cent and services 56 per cent of the GDP. One of the main areas of Indo-Swiss cooperation is in the biotechnology Sector. Switzerland is one of the leading nations for innovation. Swiss Institutes like Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich amongst top rankers. Cooperation between Indian and Swiss Research Institutes was launched under the agreement on scientific and technological cooperation signed on the occasion of the visit of the then Swiss President Pascal Couchepin to India in November 2003. We need to carry our cooperation further in this area.
In our view, being a leading global financial and trade center, Switzerland could also perhaps look at India especially for knowledge-based industries, IT enabled Services and Business Process Outsourcing, R&D and other core industrial sectors like food processing and health. On our part, we will be looking at Switzerland particularly for state-of-the-art technologies, which can contribute to the modernization of the Indian industrial sector.
I do hope this Business Meeting will be another milestone in the economic relations of the two countries and many new potential areas of Indo-Swiss cooperation would be identified. We look forward to more collaboration between Indian and Swiss businesses, which will further contribute to modernization and progress of Indian Industrial Sector.