At an event Tuesday in India’s technology hub, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accompanied by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, reiterated his “Make in India” strategy and said a partnership with the European industrial giant would help boost that vision and raise trade between the two nations to its true potential.
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He added: “Our partnership [with Germany] will also grow in areas like defense manufacturing; trade in advanced technology; intelligence; and countering terrorism and radicalism. German strengths and India’s priorities are aligned”, Modi said after meetings lasting three hours with Merkel, who arrived in the capital on Sunday. Foreign companies have long despaired at India´s levels of taxation, corruption and other hurdles to doing business.
In the talks, Germany announced to provide assistance of over one billion euros for India’s solar projects.
Besides these, he said, one was on flight marshal on flight security and disaster management, where Germans have a very strong record on search and rescue operations.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is looking to expand its presence in India to compensate for a slowdown in China.
The deal on fast-track approvals process for German firms envisages single-point clearance for various projects which is aimed at encouraging more and more German companies to complement Modis Make in India initiative and invest significantly.
“I admire German leadership in clean energy and commitment to combating climate change”, PM Modi said while addressing a joint press conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel.
“It’s our hope that this matter would be looked at fairly and sensibly and would hopefully not be an impediment to the free trade deal”, Foreign Secretary Subrahmanian Jaishankar told a briefing.
Recalling his visit to Hannover in Germany in April, the prime minister said his government was open to ideas, innovations and enterprises because never before was India so well prepared to absorb talent, technology and investment from outside.
During Merkel’s visit, both the countries are likely to address the sticky German language issue as they are learnt to have made “substantial progress” in this regard.
“More and more Indian students in Germany can actually study German engineering”.
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“We usually are not going to take a break for 2 years earlier than we meet subsequent are going to be candid sooner or later to make the method run easily”, Merkel added.
