India’s huge market, fast-growing economy presents opportunities for Irish companies: Conor Fahy, India at Enterprise Ireland

How are the trade relations between the two countries? And how are companies from both the countries contributing to boost the GDP?

Currently, the trade relations between Ireland and India are modest. The major reason I think is the gap between awareness and action and we are making sure to solve this biggest challenge. Although, we have some Indian companies that have invested in Ireland as a footprint within the European Union at a significant scale. One of the Tata Group companies in Northwest Ireland employs over 1,300 people, one of the biggest suppliers in the region. Similarly, we have Irish companies that are investing here in India. This indicates and ascertains that there have been steps between both our economies in terms of fostering greater connectivity in our businesses. Our role as a development agency is to encourage more of the businesses the way that we want to see greater activity by Indian companies in Ireland, and we want to see greater activity by Irish companies in India. This can only be done by creating awareness on both sides about what the opportunity is. Ireland has been a member of the European Union since 1973. We have compliance with all the regulatory and other aspects of market access. So, giving an Indian company that sets up an Ireland, an immediate market of 300 million people in the stores, plus access to over 1500 multinationals that are based in Ireland. This reflects our ability to be a great international first step for ambitious Indian companies that want to go global. Additionally, India being a huge market and such a fast-growing economy presents opportunities for Irish companies in a variety of sectors like aviation, education, life sciences and fintech. And, I think there are certain niche areas where Ireland can support the development of the Indian economy by providing compelling, innovative solutions based on technology that can help an Indian company be more efficient, helping Indian companies make money, and help companies save on their production, and obviously make more money from that.

 What are some of the key sectors that Ireland focuses on, especially with regards to India?

Combining all our activities over the past few years, education has definitely been a cornerstone. And it’s very important because it creates this bridge between Ireland and India, through our young people who go from India to Ireland to study a third level, and who go on in many cases to study for fourth level PhD studies and research. This is an activity, which numbers around 5000 students a year and is creating an amazing future connection between our two countries. That’s because of the students; some will remain in Ireland and work in Ireland. We have already seen that, where the Indian executives are coming back to work and bringing their activities from Ireland to India. We are basically creating jobs and commercial connections because we see the potential in Indians. Furthermore, we’re also witnessing Indian students furthering their international career in Ireland, coming back to work here, and bringing that experience and knowledge to bear on Indian companies. Other sectors of significance will be life sciences. The significant level of investment in life sciences here in India has created opportunities for Irish companies. We have quite a range of companies producing medical devices, innovation into primary health care and all of those companies have the potential to do business here. I think the pandemic has certainly allowed us to create some of those linkages through the delivery of respiratory systems to India, the delivery of clean air systems to the healthcare sector, sector, and others. I believe this is a great start to creating a bridge that will see further linkages in those areas.

You just mentioned that education is one of the key sectors for Ireland and India. How are the countries benefiting to boost the sustainability of cultures, ideas and trade relations through education and exchange of students?

I am convinced, in Ireland and India, our key assets are people. And together, we can develop people who are well educated, well-skilled, flexible, internationally diverse, and multilingual and make them an even bigger asset for the country. Ireland has traditionally invested in the education system, allowing it to produce a highly educated workforce, which is critical for us to remain competitive internationally. I think the same is true of India. When you think of education, we’ve moved from traditional forms of education now to harnessing technology to deliver education. This has a progressive future and already witnessed a massive area of growth in India. In my opinion, this will only grow further and Ireland has a role to play in that as we have considerable experience in harnessing technology for education. And I think that type of partnership will also be an ability to create this link between what education means for both our economies.

Mr Robert Troy was here last week. How will this affect bilateral relations?

This goes back to what I said earlier, that I think we need to work on creating greater awareness and understanding. Minister Troy came here with the ability to raise the profile of Ireland in a week where we’re both celebrating national holidays. St. Patrick’s Week in Ireland is an important week because most of our ministers now are travelling around the world, talking about Ireland. Our National Day is the 17th of March and here on the 18th of March, India hosted one of its most important national holidays. Thus, the visit makes it more interesting because both India and Ireland are in a period of national identity and the minister’s visit here raises the profile of Ireland and created opportunities for him to get a better understanding and bring that back to his own government in terms of encouraging other ministers to travel. Besides, our deputy prime minister is of Indian origin and I’m aware of him expressing interest to lead a trade delegation here in the future. Therefore, we see this as a start of returning to connecting our two countries together post-pandemic.

Sustainable Development Goals and symbiotic relations of India and Ireland have been growing, could you throw some light on the same?

The first thing I’d say is Ireland is a really strong supporter of the Paris Agreement, as a multilateral mechanism to drive global climate action. Thus, the whole idea of Ireland putting sustainability to the fore is really important. In fact, we are active partners in Europe, working towards the ambitious targets of 2050.

We remain in strong support of regulations on greenhouse emissions reduction by 55 percent by 2030. This being our signed-up goal and complete alliance thing to the national climate legislation, Climate Action Plan and low carbon development amendment, everything is backed up by legislation that has been enacted in order to drive out the statutory commitment of the country to reduce our emissions. When this is contextualized to India, the whole nation is an open economy and ready for a sustainable future. Besides, I believe that the generations to come will hold this account as to how we enacted mechanisms within our economies for sustainability.

What are some of the solutions that companies in India and Ireland are closely working on for a sustainable future?

Coming back to the legislative aspect, we have a strategy in Ireland called Innovation 20, which kind of sets out the roadmap for priority we have for how science and technology will support the whole area of sustainability.

So, for us, that kind of is supposed to be the anchor. It includes a direct alignment to activities internationally, under the area of energy, climate, sustainable living, sustainable food production, advanced and smart manufacturing. As a matter of fact, from all these sectors, to some degree, we’ve had some companies who have been active here in India. For instance, if we talk about advanced smart manufacturing, we have a company here that setting up an office is related to the Internet of Things or industry 4.0 making technology that can make industrial processes in India, more efficient, more sustainable. In addition to this, we also have companies which produce solutions for commercial applications, which reduce the level of energy within the commercial premises or office. These can be anything from smart lighting, to smart design of the building, which allows the building itself to be a contributor to the reduction of its own carbon footprint.