SME Times News Bureau | 30 Nov, 2012
Swiss companies are keen about business opportunities in
India, a Swiss government official said here Thursday.
"Swiss companies are now not just looking at China. They are looking at
Asian and Latin American markets that have high growth potential. They are
looking at the growing middle class such as the one in India," Chris
Watts, of Swiss government's Trade and Investment Promotion body, told IANS.
According to Watts, Switzerland is the eleventh biggest foreign investor in
India and Swiss companies have created about 66,000 jobs in India in the last
10 years.
Currrently around 100 Swiss firms are doing business in India.
"Bilateral trade (between the two countries) is expected to grow 5-10
percent over the one to two years. I expect Swiss exports to grow little faster
than Indian exports to Switzerland," he said.
The trade between India and Switzerland stood at around $5 billion last year.
Indian companies too are showing a lot of interest in investing in Switzerland.
Watts was speaking on the sidelines of an event organised by the Swiss embassy
to present Glenmark Pharmaceuticals chairman Glenn Saldanha with the Swiss
Ambassador's Award for Exceptional Innovation.
Presenting the award Switzerland's Ambassador to India, Linus von Castelmur
said: "Innovation has become the new driving force of Indo-Swiss
partnership and Glenmark is a very good case in point. Glenmark Pharmaceuticals
was the first Indian life science enterprise to establish a research and
development facility outside India in 2006. Glenmark's 3000 sq m state of the
art laboratory in La Chaux-de-Fonds employs 60 highly qualified
scientists."
Saldanha told media persons present that Glenmark's research work in novel
biologics resulted in its signing a landmark agreement with Sanofi of France,
which was the first outlicencing deal by an Indian company and the largest deal
across emerging markets in the area of novel biologics.