Indo-German cooperation in Skill Development opens up in West Bengal

Kolkata, 24 June (HS): Taking advantage of huge potential for business in West Bengal,a number of Memoranda of Understanding(MoUs) have recently been signed between Indian and German companies in the state in the areas of Skill Development and some other sectors .

This was informed here today by Consul General of Germany in Kolkata Michael Feiner during an interactive session, organised by the city’s premier Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry(MCCI), and thanked Chief minister Mamata Banerjee for visiting Germany last year seeking more investment in this state.

Speaking on the broad issue of’Trade and Bilateral Relations between India and Germany’,here this afternoon, Consul General Feiner,a career diplomat as well as a well known physician in his country, however regretted that though about 100 German companies and their subsidiaries had been operating in this Eastern metropolis for several years now, not many new German or other foreign companies were coming to West Bengal ‘mainly because of its changed perception to foreign investors’.

Citing examples and replying to queries from Hindusthan Samachar, he informed that out of a total of a whopping Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) of 10,99 billion USD in India from Germany alone till about a year ago,the share of West Bengal in the whole pie was only about 3 to 4 per cent, compared to huge amount invested in Chennai, Mumbai and the New Delhi regions.

Asked about the prime reasons for this slide in spite of all out efforts of the Mamata Banerjee government  to improve the overall image of the state to foreign investors and the undeniable improvement in terms of infrastructural and logistics supports to them, the German envoy said  following last year’s visit of the Chief minister to Germany seeking new investment, a number of  Memoranda of Understandings(MoUs) were signed between the state government and a number of German companies in  the areas of Skill Development, Information Technology and Organic products who had evinced keen interest.

‘We hope that at least some of them would come to Kolkata soon and look at the opportunities  for setting up new units under joint ventures’,he said.

When his attention was drawn towards the lack of any direct air link between Kolkata and any German city like Frankfurt,Berlin or Munich or even Cologne following the withdrawal of direct services of German National carrier Lufthansa from the city a  few years ago because of lack of business, the German Consul said since the Airlines industry had now become very competitive worldwide, unless there were enough passengers from here, there was very little possibility of Lufthansa coming back to Kolkata soon.

Earlier, referring to the all India scenario of Indo-German trade and commerce, Dr Feiner said  since India  had now come among the top 20 business partners of his country the total  trade  between the two countries had now reached to nearly 22 billion USD, from only about 15 billion USD about a decade ago.

‘We have been importing goods and a wide range of materials from India worth more than 8.68 billion USD every year’, he said replying to another query and claimed that Germany was currently India’s largest trading partner in Europe.

Moreover, he said, as many 274 Indian companies from various sectors including those from  Pharmaceutical, IT, biotech and even Auto ancillary industries  were currently operating in Germany with a total investment of over 7 billion USD.Some of them had even come from Eastern India representing the Medium and Micro sectors, he said.

‘Since both Eastern and Northeastern parts of India have huge scope and opportunity to develop business, we are confident that many more joint ventures would soon come alive and be signed in various sectors to regain the lost glory’, the German Consul General pointed out.

Earlier he was welcomed at the Chamber by MCCI President and noted businessman Vishal Jhajharia in presence of Indo-German Chamber of Commerce President Nari Kalwani and Offiicer on Special Duty, Department of Industry and Commerce, Government of West Bengal, Bandana Pokhriyal, IAS.