The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Finland looks for research partners among varsities, businesses

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 04, 2006
ePaper

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Finland looks for research partners among varsities, businesses

Special Correspondent

"We are looking at tourism too, as flights between Helsinki and Indian cities are getting more frequent"

SCOUTING FOR COLLABORATION: Esko Aho, former Prime Minister of Finland and president, Finnish National Fund for Research and Development (third from left), with (from left to right) Veli-Pekka Saarnivaara, director-general, Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation; M. Velmurugan, Director, Tamil Nadu Industrial Guidance and Export Promotion Bureau; and T.T. Ashok, chairman, Corporate Social Responsibility Sub Committee, Confederation of Indian Industry-Southern Region, in Chennai on Friday. — PHOTO: R. SHIVAJI RAO

CHENNAI: India and Finland should collaborate extensively in key areas of research and development and technological innovations, Esko Aho, former Finnish Prime Minister and president of the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development (SITRA), said on Friday.

The areas of collaboration could be information and communication technology, healthcare, biotechnology, life sciences and infrastructure development. "We are looking at tourism collaborations too, ... as direct flights between Helsinki and major Indian cities are getting more frequent," he told reporters at a meeting of the India-Finland Technology and Innovation Forum, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry-Southern Region (CII-SR).

Mr. Aho was here as head of a high-powered Finnish delegation comprising directors of key innovation groups.

Earlier, he told the forum that Finland had earmarked 500 million euros, through SITRA, to fund technological collaborations with global partners, especially India. The SITRA was also keen on promoting educational ties with Indian institutions through exchange programmes. Besides Nokia, several globalised Finnish companies and their contractors were keen on investing in India. The Finnish Government was taking initiatives to connect Finnish small and medium enterprises with their Indian counterparts. Another possibility was setting up of a funding institution for Indo-Finnish joint ventures, Mr. Aho said.

The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES) was co-funding over 2,000 innovative, risk-intensive projects that involved world-class organisations such as the Indian Institute of Management and the CSIR, Veli-Pekka Saarnivaara, director-general, TEKES, said. The Finland Government had identified five Indo-Finnish projects for support.

The easy availability of skilled talent in Tamil Nadu led to multinationals ramping up the number of employees frequently, said M. Velmurugan, Director, Tamil Nadu Industrial Guidance and Export Promotion Bureau. Nokia, for example, had started with 800 people, but had increased its staff strength to around 8,000. With the global investment in the electronic and IT hardware industry increasing substantially, Tamil Nadu was emerging as a successful electronic cluster.

150 IT parks likely

At present, the State had around 1,400 IT companies that provided job opportunities to 1,50,000 software engineers. Around 150 IT parks were expected to come up in the State and they would employ over six lakh software engineers. Finnish companies should explore investment opportunities in research and development and contract research in the State, he said.

While Finland's strengths lay in mobile technology and the paper and pulp industry, India 's strength was in engineering, auto components, textile and IT software, said T.T. Ashok, chairman, Corporate Social Responsibility Sub Committee, CII-SR.

At present, there were over a hundred Finnish companies such as Nokia, Wartsila and Kone Elevators, operating out of India.

Bilateral trade could be strengthened thorough collaborative opportunities that India offered in the knowledge-based industries. India offered a rare combination of relatively cost effective and skilled manpower and a well-developed business infrastructure, he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu