Hanover - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “huge” opportunities await German industry as he seeks to roll back barriers to foreign investment and speed up growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy.
India needs and is open to foreign partnerships as officials push to attract investment in areas from construction and railways to insurance, Modi said on Sunday in a speech at the opening of the Hanover industrial fair, where India is this year’s partner nation. Germany is India’s biggest trade partner in the 28-nation European Union.
“Today I come to seek German partnership in my own mission to open up India’s seamless economic potential,” said Modi, taking the podium before a speech by Chancellor Angela Merkel in which she praised his efforts to ease foreign investment impediments. “The opportunities we offer are huge.”
Modi’s pledge to cut red tape for European trade and hurdles for direct investment may widen German exports that have tended to focus on machines, chemicals and automobiles, yielding trade surpluses in Germany’s favour. India’s economy may grow as much as 7.4 percent in the last fiscal year, according to the government, matching China as the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
India is seeking partners in particular for rail network, since “railways are the thread that binds India and it will be a pathway to India’s transformation”, Modi said.
Modi’s trip to Germany follows a stop in France, where his government ordered 36 Dassault Rafale warplanes in favour of the Eurofighter combat plane made by a consortium that includes Airbus Group NV and BAE Systems PLC.
“That’s competition,” Merkel, who will host Modi at the chancellery in Berlin on Tuesday, said in her speech.
German-Indian trade contracted 7.4 percent to 16.1 billion euros ($17.1 billion) in 2013-2014. India was Germany’s 25th most important destination for exports that year, while Germany was India’s 9th most important destination for its exports, underlining the imbalance in trade flows.
Bloomberg