The Hindu Business Line : Buddhadeb seeks Italian expertise to boost trade

The details
The Italian business delegation is the largest of its kind to visit the city.
Around 2,000 B2B meetings were held between members of the delegation and their Indian counterparts.

BUSINESS MEETING: The Prime Minister of Italy, Romano Prodi, and the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, at a meeting on `Indo-Italian Synergy: Destination West Bengal' in Kolkata on Tuesday. — A. Roy Chowdhury

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Kolkata Feb. 13 The West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has sought Italian technology and expertise to boost select sectors of the State's economy, such as leather, horticulture and agro-products processing and packaging.

Mr Bhattacharjee held talks with the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Romano Prodi, a few minutes before both of them addressed the `Indo-Italian Synergy: Destination West Bengal' summit here today.

The event was attended by, among others, Ms Emma Bonino, Italy's Minister for International Trade, Mr Nirupam Sen, West Bengal's Minister of Industries, Mr Guiseppe Morandini, President Small Industry Confindustia of Italy, Mr Saroj Poddar, immediate Past President of FICCI, and a 400-strong Italian business delegation that is exploring opportunities in West Bengal.

Lack of Facilities

Mr Bhattacharjee said West Bengal had six climatic zones and was the country's major producer of fruits and vegetables. A significant portion of such produce was being wasted owing to lack of processing and preservation facilities. Technological and operational help from Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) would go a long way in setting up processing, preservation and packaging capacities and bridge the gap in this regard.

Mr Bhattacharjee said West Bengal was a producer of "blue goat skin", which is much sought after by the leather processing and leather goods industry. He mentioned the integrated Calcutta Leather Complex and asked Italian SMEs to offer equipment and technology so that the full potential of the leather and leather goods sector in the State could be harnessed.

According to him, Italy and West Bengal had a lot in common regarding films, culture and fine arts.

The Italian Government had provided fiscal assistance to improve civic services in 14 municipalities across the State. The universities of Calcutta, Jadavpur and Rabindra Bharati have forged collaborations with their counterparts in Rome, Venice, Naples and Turin, he said.

`Dynamic state'

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Prodi described West Bengal as "one of the most dynamic states of India". He said there were strong commonalities in the cultures of Italy and West Bengal and suggested that the bonding had now being extended to companies in both countries as well. "This seminar is just the beginning of complex strategy that we want to take to further our bilateral economic ties," he said.

Mr Prodi said Italian SMEs would be keen on offering their expertise to companies here, especially in areas such as agri-business, leather, engineering and machine tools.

He welcomed Indian companies to Italy "because we want Italy to be the bridge between Asia and the European market which, with 500 million consumers, is today bigger than the US market."

The Italian business delegation is the largest of its kind to visit the city. Yesterday, around 2,000 B2B meetings were held between members of the visiting delegation and their Indian counterparts. Three memoranda of understanding were signed. A consortium of Italian banks has set up a 300-million "Go India Fund" to facilitate the implementation of Italian companies' business plans in India, it was stated.

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