Swiss Look To Closer Ties With India

The Swiss minister for economic affairs, Federal Councillor Pascal Couchepin, has expressed the desire to increase his country's investment in India.

Couchepin, who is here to deepen the bilateral trade and economic relations with India, says Switzerland is sympathetic to India's problems of trying to reform the economy with scarce resources. India's huge market is also an attractive prospect.

"Everything is in the right direction. We are looking forward to more liberalisation," he told journalists here yesterday.

Couchepin is accompanied by a high-level trade delegation, including government representatives and some leading industrialists.

In Delhi, he called on the Prime Minister, the President and the ministers of commerce, industry, power and finance. Along with members of the delegations, he had discussions with representatives of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) in Delhi and will meet members of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Mumbai.

 

The Swiss delegation's purpose is to offer first hand information on India's economy to Swiss industrialists and industry associations. Couchepin also launched the new edition of the Swiss Business Guide for India.

Indo-Swiss business ties are close, although levels of investment have been stagnant. The Swiss ministry of economic affairs has invested in the Infrastructure Development Finance Company and the Alliance Management and Fiscal Services Ltd in India. It is financing the Swiss Organisation for Facilitating Investments and the Swiss Office for Trade Promotion.

A Swiss Technical Venture Capital Fund for Indian and Swiss small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has also been set up as an avenue for the transfer of technology.

In the past, Couchepin and members of his team admitted defensively that Swiss investment in India has been small in volume, while Swiss exports to India have been rising. However, they attributed this to to the east Asian financial crisis, restrictive policies adopted by India because of its balance of payments problems and misconceptions about India in the minds of Swiss businessmen.

Another member of the delegation, Suresh Premchand, who is also president of the Swiss Indian Chamber of Commerce and managing director of Preroy AG Zug, however, was forthright in his criticism of India's current reforms process. "The big Swiss companies are already in India. You need to get the small and medium companies. The government must realise that these companies do not have time. Lock manufacturers in Switzerland, for instance, cannot understand why locks are an SSI (small scale industry), therefore on India's negative list. We need to reform faster."

Couchepin said he agreed totally with India's position that non-trade factors like environment and labour standards should not be brought up at multilateral trading organisations like the WTO.

"The best place for labour standards is the International Labour Organisation and environmental concerns must be addressed at such multilateral meetings as the Kyoto Convention and the Rio Summit. These issues must not be used to raise protectionist barriers," he said.