Why India?
With over one billion inhabitants and one of the largest and fastest growing markets in the world, India clearly offers a vast number of opportunities for EU enterprises and science and technology (S&T) entities.
In particular, India is emerging as a biotechnology powerhouse in Asia. Aside from great opportunities presented by the huge internal market, it also features a fast growing number of Science Parks, competitive companies and excellent University Institutes. Hyderabad and Bangalore are two internationally recognized centres of research and business in biotech.
However, European SMEs have various barriers for the access to Indian Biotech market: access to finance is easier said than done and the Indian system as a whole is very complex due to lack of information on legal and ethical issues. For example, one serious obstacle to business and investments in the region is a lack of information on IPR in India.
On the other hand, India is also one of the world’s worst polluters and faces catastrophic impacts from climate change. To secure sustainable development, the country must therefore identify areas in its booming economy where clean technology can be used. India will have to “reinvent growth” without polluting heavily.
Conversely, European expertise in clean technologies and the extensive worldwide efforts to combat climate change represent a major economic opportunity. This is where a close cooperation between the European and Indian communities can make a difference and have an important impact, notably in the green and white biotech.
On the EU - India summit in Marseille in 2009, leaders stressed that climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time and therefore decided that clean and sustainable development should be a joint priority area of EU-India cooperation.
An European Business and Technology Centre in India
In this context, 16 European partners under the overall coordination of Eurochambres, the Association of European Chamber of Commerce and Industry, have recently established the European Business and Technology Centre within a European Union co-funded program. The Centre is already operative in New Delhi and other local offices will be established soon.
The idea of EBTC is to reconcile two objectives: addressing climate change challenges in India and assisting businesses, research institutions as well as individual researchers - in Europe and India - to work together towards generating and enhancing business opportunities and technology transfer.
Moreover, the Centre aims to become one of the main reference points for promoting European business and research in India.
The Centre will provide support services to EU companies and researchers eager to enter the Indian market, with a focus on technologies related to climate change in 4 selected key sectors: Biotechnology, Energy, Environment and Transport.
The Milan Chamber of Commerce, coordinator of the biotech cluster within the consortium, with two other European leading regional biotechnology industry groups as ERBI from Cambridge and COPCA from Barcelona, will implement a number of activities to overcome described obstacles and foster a durable EU-India cooperation in business as well as in research projects.
Biotech activities
To overcome the lack of information and knowledge about Indian biotech market and about funding and business opportunities in both European and Indian realities, partners will set an information service. This activity aims to enhance transparency of market access conditions in India and empowering European companies, research institutions as well as individual researchers with cutting edge intelligence on opportunities in the Indian market. Many existing initiatives and networks already generate knowledge and information on the Indian market. EBTC is centralising this existing knowledge and making sure it becomes more accessible to the European Business and Research Community.
Once a general frame of the industrial and research state of the art will be acquired, and a map of possibilities and opportunities will be available, partners will stimulate cooperation through networking actions and matchmaking events.
In this purpose, the consortium will organize several events to present biotech opportunities with the involvement of key actors from both research and business to enhance potential cooperation with Indian companies. It will also take part to main biotech events in Europe as well as in India to promote EBTC activities.
Consortium partners will also be engaged in facilitating the cooperation between European and Indian companies, research institutions and individual researchers in specific, well-defined fields. This includes promoting the participation of EU researchers in Indian funded programs, subsector-specific matchmaking events, development and implementation of best-practice case studies, organisation of trade missions in cooperation with the European Member States etc.
In addiction, through a structured networking approach, EBTC intends to make a valuable contribution to EU-India relations through establishing a dialogue with political decision makers, interacting with public authorities, R&D organizations, cluster / sub cluster consultative groups and private players. Effective networking will be done in order to establish productive long-term relationships. Consortium partners will participate in seminars and workshops of key associations to discuss relevant trade aspects and collect information.
If you are interested in opportunity raised from EBTC, don’t hesitate to get in contact with us:
Gianpaolo Sarolli: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) ; +39 02 8515 5234
Ilaria Bonetti: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address); +39 02 8515 5230
Marina Calcagno: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address); +39 02 8515 5364
We are looking forward to collaborate with you.
