Union Minister for Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal, who led the team India at World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos from 23-25 May 2022, finished his trip with several high-level engagements aimed at projecting India as a reliable partner, a stable economy and an attractive investment destination.
Accompanied by two Union Ministers, viz. Shri Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, and Shri Hardeep Puri, Union Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Goyal leveraged the WEF platform to further help reinforce India’s position as a crucial stakeholder in shaping the global narrative.
The Minister held meetings with Mr. Khalid Al- Falih, Minister of Investment, Saudi Arabia, Said Mohammed Ahmed Al Saqri, Minister of Economy, Oman, and Thani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade, UAE besides Secretary General of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Nayef Al Hajraf, CEOs of DP World Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, and Khaldoon Al Mubarak CEO & MD, Mubadala Investment Company to take stock of the existing trade & investment relations and emphasized the need for closer integration.
Goyal in his meeting with CEOs including Arvind Krishna, CEO IBM, Alexander R. Wynaendts (Chairman-elect, Deutsche Bank, Bill Winters, Group CEO, Standard Chartered Bank, Bruce Flatt, CEO, Brookfield Asset Management Inc, Sanjay Mehrotra, President, and CEO, Micron, Pat Gelsinger, CEO, Intel, Alan Jope. CEO, Unilever, Benoit Bazin, CEO, Saint Gobain, and Anil Agarwal, Executive Chairman, Vedanta Resources, emphasized India being a great investment destination with several government interventions including Gati-shakti, Asset Monetization program, Start-Up India, National Infrastructure Pipeline and Investment Corridors.
To project the India story and inform about the reforms being undertaken by the government for improving the ease-of-doing business and the investment climate, Goyal also held meetings with leaders of various countries, and regional and multilateral institutions including John F. Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, National Security Council, USA, Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, US Department of Commerce, Simon Kollerup, Minister for Industry, Business and Financial Affairs, Denmark, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, DG, WTO, Muhammad Lutfi, Minister of Trade, Indonesia, Fatih Birol, Executive Director, International Energy Agency, Queen Maxima of Netherlands, Guy Parmelin, Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research of Switzerland, Klaus Schwab, Founder & Chairman, WEF, Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice President, European Commission.
The union minister also addressed several sessions, including the Breakfast session Discussion on Trade 4.0, Invest India Round Table on Investment in India, India at 75: Strategic Outlook, The 2030 Industrial Development Agenda, and ‘Trade now: what’.
While addressing the session, Goyal emphasized that the India story had been receiving a lot of enthusiasm across the world despite constraints like Covid 19, chip shortages, conflict, rising commodity prices, container shortages, and significant shipping and logistics issues, which caused massive supply chain disruptions and threw the global economy off balance.
The Minister further spoke about the recent wheat export regulation and emphasized that India’s wheat exports are less than 1% of world trade and that our export regulation should not affect global markets. He added, that India will continue to allow exports to vulnerable countries and neighbors,
In his next leg of the two-day tour, Shri Goyal is reaching the UK tomorrow, where he will hold discussions with UK Government and businesses on the progress made in FTA negotiations and the way forward. During the Summit Meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and the UK, the two leaders had set the timeline of Diwali 2022 for the finalization of the FTA between the two countries.
