‘Concessions by India needed for EU FTA’

How is the India-EU FTA progressing?

The European Commission is leading on free trade agreements. We would like to see a deep and comprehensive FTA with India. We consider it to be of substantial benefit to both sides but the Indian government needs to understand that it will have to make concessions to achieve this. And the reality is that the EU accounts for 14% of India’s exports while India comes up to 2% of the EU’s exports.

So, I think the balance of advantage in the FTA is pretty clearly on the side of India. For Ireland, the bulk of our trade with India is actually in the services sector, such as IT services. So, we would see advantages for a few sectors. One area that we would like to see a lot more exports to India would be in the alcoholic or liquor sector. Irish whiskey is a long way behind Scotch in the Indian market, and we would certainly like to see more exports in that area.

What about emerging sectors like technology and startups?

We have about 30 Indian companies with substantial presence in Ireland, and they include household names like Infosys and Wipro. And then you have other Irish companies in that field such as PM group, the computer systems design company, which has a big presence here in India. We have a certain amount of cross fertilization between these companies. We are also looking at ways in which we can help Indian startups at an early stage, while they’re still capitalized at $10 million or less, establish a toehold in Ireland as a way of accessing European markets.

India is signing a number of migration and mobility agreements with European countries. Are India and Ireland looking at something similar?

We have roughly 6000 or 7000 Indian students travelling to Ireland every year to study. They are then permitted to remain and work for two years after graduation. A lot of them, if they’re working for a big international company and are doing well, the company will usually arrange a work permit and longer term residence in Ireland. In addition to that we have a visa scheme for highly skilled workers.

In terms of India, this would normally include people like nurses and other health care professionals. But other categories including for example chefs and hotel workers are included, and about 4000 or 5000 Indians a year travel under those schemes. The Indian government is keen to promote these mobility agreements with European countries. But frankly, we see no need for one as the existing schemes meet our requirements and they meet the requirements of most Indians who are interested in travelling to Ireland.

Are there any initiatives planned to expand the bilateral partnership?

One area that’s quite important is education. There’s a strong flow of Indian students to Ireland, but we’re looking at increasing cooperation between Irish and Indian universities.

So at the moment, there are around 21 agreements between Irish colleges and universities and their Indian counterparts, and they cover a variety of areas like their research cooperation, exchanges of staff and students. There’s a possibility of joint degree programs where you study part of the time in India, and part of the time in Ireland. so we’re looking at an MOU on education, which will facilitate cooperation between universities, but along the lines of their own choices.

How have the recent Ireland looks at India in terms of the business opportunities especially in light of investment moving out of China?

Over reliance on any one market or any one source of supplies is unhealthy for anybody and so looking at diversity, and diversifying supply chains is a logical step for any stage. But as I said, in Ireland, we don’t dictate policy to industries and much of the major industry is global with multinational companies. There is certainly a lot of interest in India as part of diversifying one’s investments in Asia.