The Hindu : National : Showcasing India: a response

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 30, 2006

National

National

Showcasing India: a response

C.S. Shukla, Executive Director, Engineering Export Promotion Council, New Delhi, writes regarding the Open Page article ( The Hindu May 21, 2006,) `The way we showcase India abroad' on the recently concluded Hannover Messe at Hannover, Germany from April 24-28 2006: The Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) was the chief coordinating organisation along with Ministry of Commerce and IBEF. From all reportings in Germany and in India, it was a landmark event.

It is surprising that Mr. Anand's estimates were limited to 30 or 40 Indian participants whereas the actual number was 387. In fact, in Hall No 6 where the India Pavilion was constructed by the EEPC, the participation was 344 from Indian companies consisting of large and SME sectors besides various institutions such as ISRO and State Governments.

Your writer has also erred in judging the success of an exhibition by the amount of business transacted.

In fact, the whole purpose of the exhibition was to showcase the enormous possibilities, India has to offer to Germany and other developed countries, in areas of manufacturing and sub-contracting.

The success of this venture should be gauged from the various press and media reports of this event. The Council's website specially designed for this exhibition got daily hits numbering 90,000 during the event. Even today, we are getting several thousand hits on the exhibition site enquiring about the products displayed.

It was also a well-known fact that a number of Joint Venture Agreements were signed during the event ranging from Kingfisher and Airbus, Mann Age and Force Motors, and Deutsche Bahn and Indian Railways. Agreements were also signed between the Indian Council for Medical Research and Helm Hotz for research and cooperation in bio-technology and other medical areas.

Apart from that, long-term contracts were established between Indian and German counterparts. The judgment of the effectiveness of such events requires a much broader perspective.

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