EU – India Digital Business and Investment Roundtable
EU – India Digital Business and Investment Roundtable
The relationship of India with Europe is continuously changing & transforming for the better. India-EU relations date to the early 1960s, with India being amongst the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the European Economic Community. The two sides adopted a Joint Action Plan to strengthen dialogue and consultation mechanisms in the political and economic spheres, enhance trade and investment, and bring people and cultures together. The parties share an interest in enhancing sectoral cooperation to uphold an open, free, stable and secure digital space and promote common approaches and standards for the digital transformation of industry and society. There is a momentum to organise enhanced exchanges in the respective EU and Indian digital ecosystems, and substantial contributions can be made to a common digital future.
To enhance the bilateral relationships and economic development, the Delegation of European Union to India, in collaboration with Global Business Inroads (GBI), Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), NASSCOM | The trade association of Indian IT BPM industry, and Particip, has launched the EU – India Digital Business and Investment Roundtable. An EU-India Digital Investor and Business Forum is being organised as a roundtable which aims to pave the way to the Digital Investment Forum. This EU-India Digital Business and Investment Roundtable is being planned as initial Round-table preparing the Digital Investment Forum. This Roundtable will gather incubators, start-ups, investors, corporates, SMEs, and organisations working in building bridges between India and EU for digital investment.
The main objective of this event is be to gather stakeholders’ views on investment climate, challenges and opportunities. Policymakers from EU and India are invited to set the scene, and listen. The purpose is to collect analytical elements and suggestions helpful to boost business and investment growth driven by the digital transformation. The scope of discussion will encompass elements of market access and investment (tools and resources, market and opportunities knowledge, investigation and prospective, support, facilitation schemes, collaboration, partnership and co-creation, regulatory framework, infrastructure, skills, access to finance, upscaling possibilities, transparency, predictability, security, privacy, human and financial mobility…) specific to the digital universe.
The program will allow participants to comment both on the possible institutional support they would see fit to increase bonds between EU and India for digital transformation and investments, and also on practical solutions and proposals to enhance cross-fertilisation and investment. The round-table will help structuring the approach of EU-India High Level Digital Investment Forum, to be organised by the end of 2021, and possibly identify areas where further research/analysis could be implemented to have an outcome-based forum.
EU-India Digital Business and Investment Roundtable
Date: July 23rd, 2021
Time: 10:00 – 13:30 CEST / 13:30 – 17.00 IST
Venue: Online Zoom event
Draft Agenda
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CEST |
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Opening Session – Plenary – 1 hour |
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Topic |
Speaker |
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10:00 |
13:30 |
Welcome remarks - context setting |
Leena Pishe Thomas, Director - Global Business Inroads (GBI) |
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10:05 |
13:35 |
Opening Address |
H.E. Mr. Ugo Astuto, Ambassador of the European Union to India |
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10:10 |
13:40 |
Policy perspective (EU-India strategic partnership, connectivity partnership, ICT dialogue) |
Gerard de Graaf - EU, co-chair of the EU-India ICT joint group Director DG CNECT
Bhuvnesh Kumar, IAS, Joint Secretary - MeitY |
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10:25 |
13:55 |
Objective of the Roundtable leading to Digital Investment Forum |
Alvis Ancans - International Relations Officer European Commission, DG CONNECT
Benoit Sauveroche - First Counsellor at the Delegation of the European Union to India |
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10:35 |
14:05 |
State of play on ongoing EU-India networking events and investor-start-up sessions (EU VC Connect, India VC connect and Digital B2b meetings) |
Gagan Sabharwal, Senior Director - Global Trade Development, NASSCOM Leena Pishe Thomas, Director – Global Business Inroads (GBI) |
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10:45 |
14:15 |
Facilitating the admission and growth of EU-based start-ups in India and Indian Start-Ups in the EU |
Seeta Sharma, Technical Officer International Labour Organization (ILO), India |
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Breakout Sessions |
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14:30- 15:45 |
5 groups of Stakeholders-European and Indian representatives will share their views in Four Breakout Sessions and One Plenary Session: EU and Indian stakeholders can share their vision and inputs in a cross-over way. Each participant will be given a set of questions prior to the event, and present his/her views at the breakout session for 5 minutes. The work of the moderator will be to challenge in the last 10 minutes some relevant views to reach agreed conclusions or suggest new avenues of reflection |
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Breakout Session I
Moderator – Elena Suárez Sánchez, Business Europe |
Breakout Session II
Moderator – Jacopo Loso, EBAN |
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Breakout Session III
Moderator – Jose Jacob Kalayil, Bavarian-Indian Centre for Business and University Collaboration |
Breakout Session IV
Moderator – Navratan Katariya, NASSCOM |
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12:15-13.00 |
15:45-16:30 |
Plenary Session – Breakout Session V EU-India Corporates: Investing / fostering innovation in the other block Moderator - Mr. Shivendra Singh, Vice President & Head - Global Trade Development – NASSCOM |
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Final Plenary Session – ½ hour |
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13:00- 13.30 |
16:30-17:00 |
Summary from breakout sessions – The moderators will share the summary of their breakout sessions including key outputs in terms of themes and topics for feeding to preparation for Digital Investment Forum.
Next Steps and Closing Remarks – EUD/MEiTY |
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