The Hindu : Germany for deeper economic ties with India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2003

International

International - India & World

Germany for deeper economic ties with India

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

BERLIN SEPT. 15. Germany, which sees India growing impressively, wants to deepen its economic ties with the country and has put it at the centre of its current Asia Pacific Weeks event, which got underway today. The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, told an international audience here that it made sense to do so "because India's economy is pleasingly on the upswing."

After focusing on China in 2001 and planning to zero in on South Korea in 2004, Germany saw a lot of scope to explore the already existing ties, mainly because, given its size and democracy, India was crucial to the Asian region. The trade Germany had with Asia was more than what it did with the United States and within Europe itself. India lent itself as a natural choice because it was an open country. But Asian countries themselves, Chancellor Schroder pointed out, needed to get their intra-regional act together quickly and surely because economic relations can be ``unproblematic". Cooperation among Asians was also a prerequisite to reinforce the Asian markets and this had to be done in the interest of improving the Asian economies further. He saw the need for a more vibrant European Union-Asia initiative in this regard.

From now, till August 28, businessmen and officials would discuss how to improve this in a bilateral manner, because German private investment had to be strengthened in India and offered to assist in exploring manufacture of top products, which could deal with minimising the use of renewable assets. This, Chancellor Schroder said, was neglected too much so far, because India was one of the leading users of renewable resources.

Not only did a senior politician, Najma Heptulla, Vice-Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, lead the Indian delegation at the ceremonial inaugural of the event but, in the company of the leading lights of the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry would be Arun Shourie, Information Technology and Disinvestment Minister, talking to German interests from tomorrow on doing business in India.

Discussions with German interests here in Berlin revealed that India was getting renewed attention in the area of commerce and manufacturing for the simple reason that though it was easy to set up businesses in China, it was India where money could be made. Interest, however, was more on the aspect of setting up manufacturing plants to market products back home than in seeing India as a market. But, India should make it as easy to enter the country as China had done.

The issue was not so much about choice that the Germans wanted to make on whether to pursue India or China as a destination for its overseas direct investments in the future, as how the respective countries, especially India, wanted to make it easier. A blunt message given to Indian correspondents was that the smaller and medium businesses especially wanted the path to be less bureaucratic. Many had sought the German Government's help in smoothening entry through bilateral initiatives. In short, India was in the reckoning, notwithstanding the several areas of concern such as fundamentalism, because of the skills and talents it had on offer, most important being the IT sector.

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