January 21, 2015: German finance minister Dr Wolfgang Schäuble on his recent visit to India and at a meeting with the confederation of Indian industry (CII) has expressed his interest in working with the country’s manufacturing sector. He pointed out that prime minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign has created inroads for Germany’s industrial firms to invest in the country and set up their own manufacturing unit, especially in the auto and solar energy industries. This is because Germany is already a world leader in solar energy generation with the largest solar photovoltaics (PV) installed capacity.
This comes as a positive sign for the country soon after US secretary of state John Kerry expressed his worries over the ‘Make in India’ campaign. In his recent visit during the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, he raised concerns over India’s plan to launch a series of 1000MW grid-connected solar PV power plants where the all PV cells and modules used in the plants are slated to be made in India.
The bilateral relations between Germany and India are expected to be even better in the future as reports have revealed that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to jointly inaugurate the Hannover trade fair along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during his visit to Germany in April. India is anyway one of the trade partner countries at Hannover Messe 2015, world’s largest industrial trade fair. The fair will showcase Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative to global investors.
This is expected to rope in large scale investors to set up their manufacturing units in India in the near future. This will not only be beneficial for the country’s economy, as is already expected from the campaign, it will also be a major driver in creating new job opportunities for a country which boasts to have a huge population of young professionals ready to provide skilfull contribution to the country’s produce.
