The Hindu Business Line : Baltic Sea Region seeks investments from Indian cos

Focus on India
The region’s governments are wooing investments in the IT, telecom, life sciences sectors.
Says the region offers competencies that complement those of the Indian partners.

Preeti Mehra

Recently in Helsinki

Baltic Sea Region (BSR), an investment network and a consortium of six countries – Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, and Sweden – is wooing major investments from Indian companies in sectors such as life sciences, engineering and IT and telecom.

A few Indian companies including Tata Consultancy Services, Larsen and Toubro, Indorama, Wipro and Bharat Forge have already started investing in the region. Other large Indian companies are being invited to invest by the region, which is promoting itself as a destination that is cost-effective and productive with high research capabilities.

The consortium will provide free consultation to the companies considering setting up new businesses, arrange visit programmes, and also introductions to government officials of the nations concerned.

“With the changing economic climate, India has witnessed a series of cross-border investments and several Indian companies have expanded their operations globally including in the BSR. Countries under the BSR are investor-friendly and offer competencies that complement those of the Indian partners. Easy access to European markets, cost-effectiveness, highest rates of industrial production growth in Europe and high production efficiency based on ground-breaking IT technology, equates to value-for- money for our partners,” said Ms Annika Rembe, BSR investment group Chairperson.

The region, that has a population of only 27 million, has nine special economic zones/free ports, offering tax discounts, duty-free status and long-term leases at minimum rents. With the advantage of English language skills, the Government-owned investment agencies here are trying to woo Indian companies to invest in research-intensive areas like IT, telecom and life sciences.

Investment agencies like Invest in Finland, Invest in Sweden, and Enterprise Estonia are promoting the region as the gateway to the rest of Europe, which they estimate would give companies access to the 450 million consumers of the EU, as also the 100 million consumers of the BSR.