The Hindu Business Line : Finland envoy urges Indian private sector initiatives

GREATER involvement of the Indian private sector industry is necessary to increase the volume of trade with Finland. Speaking at an interactive session organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce, Mr Glen Lindholm, Finland's Ambassador to India, said he was confident that the bilateral trade between the two countries should increase by over 30 per cent in the current fiscal.

While the respective embassies can work together to facilitate trade, what is needed are private sector initiatives on both sides. He suggested a more sectoral, focused approach to help improve the matchmaking between Indian and Finnish companies.

Pointing out that there has been a substantial recovery since the hiccups in 2001 and 2002, when negative trends in trade volumes were witnessed, the envoy said the trend was arrested and a eight per cent growth was achieved in 2003, and 2004 had seen a 30 per cent jump in trade.

Stressing on the need to sustain the current momentum, particularly through tie-ups in sectors such as IT and communications, Mr Lindholm said many new projects by Finnish companies in areas such as electronics and packaging were now coming up in India. He, however, declined to give out any numbers in terms of value of investments, as these were still in the private sector domain of both the countries.

The Ambassador said the forthcoming India-EU business summit in Helsinki, likely in October, might be the perfect setting for boosting trade ties with Finland. He said Indian industry could look at the huge neighbouring Russian market through investments in Finland, especially in service-related sectors, forestry and biotechnology. He said India and Finland can work together in sectors like power and environmental technologies. Dwelling on various aspects of two-way trade, Mr Lindholm said the key area of outsourcing cannot be ignored.

Earlier, welcoming the envoy, Mr Umang Kanoria, President, Indian Chamber of Commerce, said exploring partnerships in biotechnology between India and Finland would be worthwhile at this juncture, when both have recently signed an MoU for co-operation in biotechnology. West Bengal, he pointed out, was now proactively seeking investments in diverse areas such as biotechnology, agro and processed foods, components manufacturing, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Mr Kanoria also invited the Finnish global player Nokia to explore opportunities for business collaborations in the State. He said Nokia also develops considerable amount of software for mobile phones, "and this is also an interesting area for India-Finland collaboration in West Bengal."

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