Indian businessmen may now find it easier to get a visa for Germany. India and Germany have agreed to set up a hotline for resolving visa-related issues faced by businesspeople on both sides.
The agreement was reached at a meeting of Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and Germany’s Federal Minister of Economics and Technology Rainer Bruderle last week.
“To address any issue connected with investments or the movement of professionals or business leaders, we both have agreed to establish a hotline between the two governments,” Sharma said. The minister added the two countries had identified the focal person for this hotline, which would function for the visas of businesspeople and skilled professionals on both the sides.
Indian companies often complain of problems in work-permit and visa regulations in Germany. Recently, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had also said visa and work permits continued to constraint India’s economic relations with Germany. Easing of visa- and work permit-related procedure is expected to promote the bilateral trade between the two countries.
Indian government officials in Germany said visa norms were so stringent that even they faced problems in getting their family members to Germany. Bruderle said German companies also faced problems in getting Indian visa, and this hotline would resolve all those issues.
The two countries reviewed their present economic engagement on trade and investment. In the area of institutional linkage, the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and the National Institute of Design in India will collaborate with their respective counterparts in Germany.
The discussions between the two countries also focused on enhancing Indo-German collaboration in innovation and skill training, infrastructure, renewable energy, energy, IT, life sciences, green technology, defence manufacturing and economic research.
India and Germany also reviewed the progress on the status of negotiations between India and the European Union towards the finalisation of a broad-based trade agreement.
“We have shared concerns on protectionism. We remain opposed to that. Besides the India-EU arrangement, we are also committed to working very closely,” Sharma said.
