By IANS
New Delhi : Finance minister P. Chidambaram is leading a delegation of top Indian chief executives to the 16th Indo-German CEO’s Joint Commission in Germany Sep 18-19, where the focus will be on energy and farm products.
The delegation comprises leading members of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), including its president Sunil Bharti Mittal, and will also deliberate on issues like European standards, export licensing and harmonised procedures.
“The mission will also discuss difficulties in issue of work permit to Indian IT professionals, mandatory payment of social security contributions with short-term work permits, and mutual recognition of standards,” a CII statement said.
The mission includes CII director general Lt. Gen. (Retd) S.S. Mehta, SRF chairman Arun Bharat Ram, I-Flex vice-chairman Deepak Ghaisas, NIIT president Pramod Srivastava, and Ballarpur Industries chairman Gautam Thapar.
“Since 1991, the new spurt of German exports to India has led to an equally impressive boost in new investment and technical cooperation projects,” said the CII statement.
“Around 65 percent of German manufacturing companies already have a presence in India and another 30 percent are in the process of coming to the country,” it added.
Germany accounts for 3.6 percent of the total foreign direct investment inflow into India. The largest collaborations have been in areas like machinery, heavy vehicles, chemicals, consultancy, IT and appliances.