CII in Taiwan to explore investment in Indian SEZ

New Delhi, Sept 3: Coinciding with the 'Invest India Mission" to Taiwan, a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) business delegation led by Gopal Srinivasan, Director, TVS Electronics Limited, is currently in Taiwan on a three-day visit to project India as an attractive investment destination.
The eleven-member team is exploring possibilities of Taiwanese investments in Indian Special Economic Zones, as that country is seen as one of the largest growing economies in Asia.

The CII delegation comprises representatives of varied industry sectors, including electronics, telecommunication, semiconductors, information technology, research and development and leather.

The team is expected to meet with top Government and industry officials and discuss business possibilities. Interactions will also take place with academia.

Taiwan was a part of “East Asia Miracle" which started around 1960s, when relatively small economies of East Asia, like Singapore, Malaysia were growing at a faster pace than most of the large developed western economies, based on the export-led growth strategy.

Taiwan is vital for India"s trade; it has a matchless record of more than 90 percent of the world"s market share in computers (desktop and notebooks), 70 percent in semiconductors, 50 percent in liquid crystal display (LCD) and 44 percent in integrated circuit (IC) design.

Taiwan is also way ahead of most countries in the areas of biotechnology and nanotechnology. Taiwan has a very strong manufacturing sector and a well-developed service sector like many developed economies.

On the other hand, Indian SEZs offers world-class infrastructure and host of tax incentives to the investors, in order to boost manufacturing and exports. Taiwanese investors can utilize the manufacturing boom in India, which has started picking up from last fiscal year. Manufacturing sector in India has grown at the fastest rate in the last 12 years.

India is strong in software sector, which can compliment Taiwan's hardware expertise effectively, together in the international markets can become a reckonable force.

Taiwan has a rich experience of engagement with SMEs in China, where Taiwan is the largest foreign investor. Channelling some of the investments into India would help risk diversification and facilitate utilisation of under-utilised capacity of this sector in India.

Since the reciprocal establishment of representative offices in 1995, bilateral trade has more than trebled. By 2005-06, it surpassed two billion dollars.

Apart from Mr. Srinivasan, the other members of the CII team are S Asokan, Director – Supply Chain, Bharti Airtel Limited, Poornima Shenoy, President, Indian Semi Conductors Association, Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director, Manufacturers" Association for Information Technology (MAIT), S. Janakiraman, President and CEO - MindTree Consulting and Chairman India Semiconductor Association, Brig. B. Raghunathan, Director, Nutek Technologies (P) Ltd., B V Naidu, Managing Director, SemIndia Systems Pvt Ltd, O K Kaul, President – Leather and Leather Products, Tata International Ltd., Debanjan Datta, Managing Director, West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited (WEBEL), Supriya Banerji, Deputy Director General, CII, and Harshit Sehgal, Deputy Director, CII.

The delegation will also participate in a business seminar on “India and Taiwan: Opportunities in Business, Trade and Commerce" in Taipei, on September 4, where over 200 Taiwanese businessmen, government officials, representatives of trade organisations, academia, media, etc are expected to participate.>